#maybankxyou

[grapejuicestyless]

Leader Of The Landslide

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: John B was always your dad’s favorite. You always assumed it was because he blamed your mother leaving on you. Though he never outwardly neglected you, you always seemed to live in your older brother’s shadow. To everyone except one.

I remembered it from a young age, as early as seven, the way they all shunned me. My mother had been long gone, and my tired brain hadn’t held a single warm memory of her other than one.

We were at the chateau, as my dad called it, sitting on the old porch. Only, it wasn’t old then, it was new, and without the cigarette buds littering the once vibrant oak. There was an old wicker chair in the corner, pushed where the dusty couch now lay. It rocked slightly, not because it was meant to, but because it was broken. The distant memory of mumbled yelling and crashing from outside. Arguments that kept me and John B hidden under his covers until daylight broke. I loved that chair.

When I was young, my mom used to hold me in that chair. She never thought I was too old to be held, to be doted on by my mother. I still called her “mama” in my toddler years, pawing at the ends of her hair and the old fabric of her shirt. She sang soft melodies to me, songs I had never committed to memory, but songs I found in the simple things I enjoy now.

Popes dad says I had her eyes, and John B once told me that our dad thought I had her laugh. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like me, he tells me he loves me, but he doesn’t like me.

Right before she left, I had been padding along the grain of the wood floors, my blanket dragging between my legs and my dad’s shirt were my makeshift pajamas hanging down to my ankles. A storm, ones we got often in the summertime as the air became warmer and pushed out the cold, had broken down a few large branches in the yard, and in an effort to find comfort, I ran to my mama.

“You favor that girl over our son!” My dad shouted, his voice thick with a simmering anger I had never heard before. I swore even then I could feel it through the walls.

“How dare you! They are my babies! I love those kids more than anything I have ever loved, and I love them just the same!” My mama argued, but her voice was softer, more conscious of her young ones who she believed were tucked into bed just a few feet away.

“I should have known you would have been this way. You haven’t seen them the same since they were born.” My mama added softly, her words bitter and heavy with an unspoken truth.

There was a heavy silence, and then, a crack. I wasn’t sure what it was, the sound of rings hitting skin and the soft clanking of another hitting the ground. I ran quietly, light on my feet as soon as the collision happened, crawling over to John B’s bed and pulling the sheets up to my chin. He didn’t even stir, so used to the feeling of my legs curling against his, expecting to wake up nose to nose when the sun would shine through his thin curtains. The arguments happened so often, it became rare that he wouldn’t wake up with me tucked into bed beside him, a nervous wreck and furrowed brows.

That was the last time I saw my mother, or heard her voice. I hadn’t known it then, but the way my father seemed distant that morning told me it was more than one of the usual fights. She wouldn’t be walking through that door again in a few days like she sometimes would, and she would never sing to me again.

I remember laying out across that old chair, pulling my small knees to my chest. Her perfume lingered on the cushion tied around the back, and her voice was carried over the breeze. She wasn’t coming back, and the pain in my father’s eyes and the churning of his stomach told me that much.

A few days later, dad called my brother and I into the living room to tell us how mama had skipped town, set off for a better life. I could tell they both blamed her, bother hated her secretly for it almost instantly, and being so young and impressionable, I nearly agreed, I nearly believed it. But I saw the way my father spoke to her and the way he had the ability to make her snap back. She deserved that life my father said she was chasing, even if deep down I knew it was a lie.

I never told my brother that dad was lying, though sometimes I did whisper it in his sleep like a prayer, like my truth would reach his dreams and taint his false sense into seeing whats real. But even as a little kid I wasn’t innocent enough to blabber on about how horrible our last living parent was. Especially not when our dad was to John B as what our mother was to me.

The chair was gone soon after, and my dad refused to tell me where he’d thrown it. At first I thought he had broken it, but he was a sensible man at times, and the extra cash lying around the kitchen told me he had sold it, and he had killed her memory too.

Years later, with barely any recollection of who she was, and lacking the foundations of which she should have built for me, sometimes I found myself curled up in that corner, my knees pulled to my chest tightly in the same ball I wound myself in all those years ago, and sometimes I found myself still calling out for her, like if she had heard how much I still needed her, she would sing for me one last time.

But I am much older now, and it has dawned on me repeatedly like some sick prayer that I am too old to be held, to be shown the affection of a mother and her infant, and I have been since the day she left.

Early mornings and stained glass windows, not from paints, but mold. Old rotten wood and dusty broken furniture. A safe haven to call home, a quiet room on the heart of the cut. My brother and I often pulled out patches of grass in the backyard, and sometimes we’d sit together on the hammock, see how high we could swing and loop our fingers around the rope to hold on.

Dad would sit inside, sometimes by the kitchen window where he could look out and watch over us, but he mainly spent his time inside of his office, which had at one point, been moms bedroom.

He used to leaning over the dirty counters, feeling the sun on his skin, letting the gentle breeze cool the back of his neck. But dad loved a lot of things, and unlike mom, he lacked a discreet touch about those things.

I guess it could be traced back to when my brother and I had just turned eight. A week after the party had rolled over, and glasses kept piling up around the house, sticky and stained a faint brown from his favorite cheap whiskey. Sometimes I tried to clean them up, and I would place them in the sink, but the colors never faded, not even after my small palms would bleed and callous.

Once, John B asked me what I was doing. He had been playing outside with Pope and JJ, and JJ had been screaming for me to come outside and be his partner in ‘signs’, our favorite childhood card game. Though, JJ and I often lost because we too, lacked the ability to be discreet in any situation.

I told him I’d be out soon, I was just doing the dishes and I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face. The usually happy, calm man looked down at his feet with something I’ve later identified embarrassment. I never blamed dad for drinking. I figured if mom leaving was still hard on me after all this time, it must have been hard for him too.

He began using his coffee mug after that. The dark liquid less shameful in a cup that gave him the ability to not only disguise his problem, but to commit it at any time of day, because John B was too oblivious to notice, and I was too naive to believe he would.

“Bird.” Dad called for John B in the backyard, not caring how Pope and I were arguing nonsensical things over each other, waving our arms and pointing fingers. JJ happily mediated, laughing at our schoolyard taunts and remarks, encouraging us to snap back, though we all knew our words were nothing more than that, and we all loved each other a great deal too much to mean any of it.

If I hadn’t been so caught up in my own thoughts, maybe I would’ve seen the way dad was swaying. The way his knuckles were white around the frame of the door. His glasses were crooked, and his breath rotten with substances. But I didn’t notice, and so little John B happily walked towards our father with open arms.

Dad hugged him. He hugged his son and held back his tears like it was the most beautiful moment he could ever dream of. He held John B like he was precious, and not to deny that he wasn’t, to me my brother was worth more than anything in the world, but to my dad, it was something more than that, and to me, it felt that way too.

Because dad never held me, his daughter, who cleaned his dishes, and covered his tracks, and lied, and stole, and cried out for him, for some peace. He never hugged me like that. Because he blamed me.

He blamed me for my mother leaving because unlike my mother, he could never love my brother and I the same. He couldn’t love two of something if he barely wanted one. He never hit me, but he was cold, calculated, cruel when he wanted to be.

That day, at just eight years old, I sat in the grass with dirt under my nails and heavy breaths wondering would it would be like to feel the warmth of my father. Would it solve all my problems or only tear me apart further.

Because maybe if I continued to never feel the embrace of the man who gave me life, it would be easier to disassociate and pretend that it didn’t hurt. Maybe it would be easier to not like him anymore, and the unbearable guilt I carried even as an eight year old, would go away finally.

I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t fighting Pope anymore, or how my gaze had drifted over to watch how tenderly my dad held onto my brother, because I couldn’t even feel the way tears burned into my skin in slow droplets that fell into my lap.

JJ hugged me then, and it felt special, I felt special, because I knew even at that age that affection was a rarity in my life, and JJ, as much as I knew he loved me, was not a physical person. Still, he held me from behind while Pope spewed out apologies, swearing on everything he believed that he hadn’t meant a word. I could tell that he too, felt confused because we had gone after each other multiple times and never had I broken down.

In that moment it felt like I had gained something more than a hug from my father, but a silent acceptance with my best friends. Because soon, even Pope shut up and looked to where JJ’s eyes were glued, and even as flustered as he had been, everyone who sat in the dirt that day understood that no words that were thrown around had ever hurt me, nor did they even reach me, because what had made me so inconsolable was the fact that my happy brother received all the praise while I laid out in the lawn, crying until I dry heaved, ignored by someone who I only ever wanted love from.

“It’s gonna be alright, Y/n/n.” JJ mumbled quietly into my ear, and for the first time, I didn’t believe a word he said.

“Dad, dad stop.” I defended myself for the first time when I was thirteen. I was only half his height and he was triple my age. I thought that somehow, if I stopped enabling his behavior, he would get better. He would see how much I cared and he would finally love me.

That was the first time dad yelled at me, really yelled at me.

My dad refused to lay a hand on me, so when my friends ask if I was ever abused, I tell them no because it feels laughable to compare my psychological trauma to the welts on their ribs when they barely escape home.

When JJ asks me whats wrong, why my eyes look so puffy in the afternoon, after I stumble out of the house in the same clothes as the night before, I tell him I didn’t get enough sleep, because how do you tell your best friend who has been climbing through my bedroom window since we were nine that my dad hurts me too, you just can’t see it.

Dad called me a liar and a psychopath when I told him he was hurting me. He told me that it wasn’t true because he loved my brother and I and he would never lay a hand on either of us, not then and not ever. Dad says that he deserves respect, that I’m only a kid and he’s the adult so I better start acting like it. He tells me that it’s like a switch went off in my head ever since I became a teenager and all of a sudden I can’t stand him. But that’s not true.

The truth was even at such a young age, I always knew I would lay my life on the line for my dad. He meant more to me than I could ever express, because to me, he was the man who hadn’t left, even when he was given all the right reasons to bail out. So, for years I tried to cover for him, clean up and take care of everyone to show him what I could never articulate into a phrase of my affection. Still, he preferred John B’s half hearted sentiment over anything I could give him.

I wished so deeply that I was born different, that I wasn’t me. Because maybe if I wasn’t the clone of my mother, maybe then my father would like me more.

I guess the worst part of it all is that I can never be sure if my father’s anger could have been my mother’s, only given to him in her absence. Would his hands have been hers as I grew older? Would her hugs turn into the white knuckles wrapped around my throat? And would her songs become the vile words my father threw at me in drunken rage?

Maybe if I kept hiding behind the cruelties of his excuses for the way I cowered around him, then John B wouldn’t have to live in the same sense of shock I have been stuck in for a decade.

Dad never laid a hand on me, but he didn’t have to. He didn’t have to touch me to kick me in the stomach, all he had to do was show me how he was capable of being a loving father, but never put me on the receiving end.

He found time for John B, even as he buried himself in his work, searching for some gold that seemed far away and unimportant. He locked himself away while I slid food under the door, and I watched as he kissed my brother’s forehead and bid him goodnight, leaving me to sleep on the couch.

Even as a thirteen year old girl, an age so tender and impressionable, I felt so much more mature than I should have. I felt the effects of neglect I couldn’t wish on anyone. In my self pity, even after he gave me every reason to turn on him, I couldn’t hate him, so I began to hate myself.

“Dad, when was the first time you felt love?” John B asked one night. For the first time in a long time, we were all lying in the living room. My brother hung over my dad’s lap and my head resting on the floor as I sank off of the old dusty beanbag.

Dad thought carefully, his large hands splayed out against my brother’s small back.

“The day you were born.” He answered thoughtfully, and I watched as my brother’s eyes lit up.

I had every right to scream, to beg for an answer because the little girl trapped inside of me didn’t deserve this kind of pain from her own blood. But I didn’t. I sniffled and sat up, storming out of the house that I wasn’t even sure I could call home. How foolish I felt for ever believing my dad would ever love us the same. How stupid I felt for thinking that my brother, who inherited our fathers name, would never be preferred over my mother’s child.

“Y/n Routledge, get back inside now!” Dad yelled, storming down the porch to catch me. But I had become good at slipping away, and neglectful parents raise angry children.

“Go to hell!” It was the first time I swore at my dad. Even I shocked myself, because it had never occurred to me that I could do that.

“Why do you have to ruin everything?” He asked me, and it made me want to laugh because when had I ever done anything to him that wasn’t in good faith? “Just like your mama! Storming off!” My dad cursed under his breath, not really bothering to chase after me. How easy would it have been for me to have ran away.

I could live under a tree, a big willow with drooping leaves and heavy branches. I could make friends with the squirrels and be a good mother to them, the mother I never had, but always dreamed of.

“My mama was a good woman!” I cried out, suddenly overwhelmed with my freshly made emotions, ones that felt too strong for a new teenage girl.

“You know nothing about her! She left, I’m the one who stayed!” Dad yelled, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious.

I did something I had never done before. In all of my life, not once had I ever blamed my dad for my mom leaving. Not even after I heard their fights from when I was no taller than the notches in the doorframes, and not after he began to spend his paychecks on alcohol instead of new shoes for John B and I. I never blamed him because he always blamed me, and if it made me feel so worthless, then how could I ever do that to him?

“I don’t blame her!” I fought back, tears burning my eyes almost as hard as the back of my throat stung. “And I don’t blame you.”

I couldn’t stay mad at dad for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t blame him, and I couldn’t lie and say I did when I didn’t. Dad didn’t say anything then, so I turned on my heels in the dirt and I stormed off.

That night, I knocked on JJ’s window. I was wearing an old Star Wars t-shirt that he once called nerdy and my rainbow pajama pants. I looked thirteen going on seven, my cupcake slippers caked in mud.

But JJ didn’t pull on my braids like my brother did when we fought, and he didn’t poke fun at my pants. He opened his window and leaned out, his messy blond hair and tired eyes adjusting to admire my face.

“Y/n/n? What happened? Why are you here?” He asked, and I could tell he sounded a little on edge. His dad used to be discreet about how he dealt with JJ, but after middle school had began, he stopped caring as JJ stuck around the same kids he grew up with. So, I stayed as quiet as possible, not wanting any trouble.

“I just missed you.” A lie. The first of many lies I would spew out to my best friend because I felt too awkward to confess my own feelings and burden him when he had it so much worse.

“Oh.” His face lit up slightly, and I could tell my words made him feel nice. “C’mon, I’ll help you in. Wouldn’t wanna lose a slipper.” He teased with a toothy grin, a smart ass from birth.

I playfully smacked his shoulder, holding my breath until my feet hit his dirty floors. He held onto my arms longer than he had to, and I wondered if he could feel my body shaking.

“Don’t make fun, okay? I like my slippers.” I smiled, blinking away the old tears that I cried on the way over, and pawing at the scrapes from the bushes I cut through to get to his house quicker.

“I would never!” He defended softly, his arms raised in a scouts honor. “Cross my heart, cupcake.”

Sometimes I wished that JJ and I were older, I thought about it often. It kept me awake after long fights with dad, that I would one day save up all the money I could scrape together and take JJ with me. We’d go around the globe, just me, him, and open ocean surrounding us, and only the scars on our skin and in our heads to remind us of the past. But we wouldn’t care, because we would be there for each other, and the ocean would wash away the evil men on the shore.

“I wish I had a more appreciative daughter!” Dad yelled at me as he packed up his things in a hurry, chasing yet another lead on his quest for the gold, a passion driven by his valiant greed.

It hurt, but it would have hurt me a lot more three years ago. At sixteen, his words meant nothing to me, because at sixteen, I had finally come to terms with the fact that my dad simply did not like me, and that was okay.

So instead of sitting in self pity, or swallowing myself whole in a another bottomless spiral of self hatred and depression, I finally found the spark that was burning so fiercely somewhere deep inside of me.

“Fuck you!” The second time I swore at dad. “Fuck you and all your promises to get better!” I stepped forward, crossing into his office, which I swore to never go in, not only because it reeked of him, but because it was only a reminder of how quickly he let mom go, and how quickly he shifted the blame onto me, an innocent infant with no real chance to do anything to anyone.

“Fuck me? Oh, fuck me? Your father? I have done everything for you! I have given you the chances my own parents couldn’t give me and you are so ungrateful! I pray for a day you wake up and see the damage you cause around here!” Dad spat, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck all your pride and fuck all your prayers!” I stepped closed again, and my knuckles pawed at his shirt desperately, my eyes looking up at my father, who stood ten times taller than me, or so it felt that way. “All this time I waited like a fool, because you’re my dad. Above anything else, before the treasure and before the alcoholic, you’re supposed to be my dad!”

“Are you drunk?” He asked. I wasn’t, but I might as well have been with how quickly my mind passed through emotions.

Here he was standing in front of me, and here I was already done processing all my grief. He wasn’t dead, I could feel each breath under the palms of my hands, yet for years it felt like walking next to a ghost with how absent and withdrawn he always was from my life.

“All I ever wanted was a father.” I told him softly. “Was that too much to ask?” I deserved to know, but I should have known better.

My dad was an asshole, and he always would be. It was in his fashion that he would brush right past me, unfeeling and lacking empathy for his own daughter.

I felt angry. Before, I felt betrayed, sad, even embarrassed by him, and by how easily I let him get away with all his faults simply because he was my father and if my brother loved him, then there had to be some good in him. But there wasn’t.

Here he was, walking out of my life, the keys to the car that I paid for in his hands, dangling just as carelessly as he was with my life. I don’t know why that set me off, but it had. I heard my feet slap against the floors before I felt myself moving.

“Give back my damn keys!” I caught up behind him, snatching the carabiner from his dirty knuckles and pushing him into the wall. He wouldn’t hit, but god, had he made me wish I could. “I paid off that loan it’s under my name!” I stuffed the clasp into my back pocket tightly.

“You wanna leave, thats fine. But you’re walking out of my life if you’re going!” I breathed out heavily, the frames on the wall rocking back and forth from the force he hit the wood with.

“What is wrong with you? Where’s my sweet little girl I used to love?” My knuckles loosened on his shirt again, but my elbows remained pressed into his stomach.

“Loved? Like you ever loved me. You couldn’t have, because you wouldn’t have taken it out on me. You wouldn’t have gotten rid of her existence in spite of me. You wouldn’t have tossed that damn chair, and you wouldn’t have burned the things she kept for me!” I wanted to cry, but more than that, I wanted him so see how exhausted I felt.

“All I wanted was a fucking father, John.”

“And you got one, and look at you, you’re a strong young woman now!” He laughed bitterly, fighting against my shaky hold. He could barely look at me. I wondered if he was asked, could he even tell a friend the color of my eyes? If I were to wash up on the shore, could he even report the body? Would my grave lay empty simply because he hadn’t known me for years, and he never would.

“I was a little girl! I was a little girl, and I still am! I’m sixteen, dad! Stop treating me like some type of problem when I’ve been nothing but great to you!” I cried this time, pushing him harder until the wood splintered and my arms gave out. We both stumbled away from each other.

“All I ever wanted was a father, but for the first time, finally I can see you are the leader of the landslide.” I scoffed pathetically, staring him down with a broken heart.

I deserved to smash all the plates in the house, to rip off all the wallpaper and spray paint the rotting white paint bright blue just in spite of my father. But even though he wasn’t kind to me, I couldn’t ignore how good of a dad he had been to John B, and more than anything I ever held close to me, I loved my brother dearly. I wiped my tears and let dad walk out on me. Neither of us said a word.

He clapped John B over the back when he got outside, promising to return soon, this time with the promise of an unpromising fortune. He swore that he loved my brother more than anything, called him by the nickname he earned long ago, and left without saying another word.

I watched wordlessly from the front steps.

We lost the gold. Once or twice. The gold we had found first was a slap to the face, but having the cross stolen right out from under us felt so much worse, especially with Pope being tied into it on such a deeper level.

We all sat around the first now, our bodies tucked close together like a perfectly woven blanket, arms tangled around each other and weak laughter echoing around the smokey fire. We didn’t have much left to fight for, but to me, I felt deeply that in a more important way, we had gotten the gold, and we had been filthy rich all along.

The gold we’d found couldn’t be measured on a scale and dealt between the seven of us evenly, but unmeasurable and sought after by anyone who understood. Because in the end, we still had each other, and to me, this was family.

JJ’s blonde hair tickled the top of my forehead. We sat close together on the low swinging hammock in the backyard. His arms wrapped around me tightly, and my legs thrown over his lap carelessly. We talked quietly with Kiara about the little things. We found alternatives to seek out her dreams of preserving the ecosystem and to swim with the turtles.

It all felt so real, so domestic for a group of friends who were always running from something. It felt like the first time in a while I had time to stop and catch my breath.

“What are you thinking about, cupcake?” The nickname rolled nicely off the tongue, his crooked smile endearing to me, and his eyes sweeter than any doe I’d ever encountered.

I sighed contently, cuddling closer to the boy and soaking up his warmth greedily. Though we both never said it would loud, it always felt nice to share close proximity with someone we trusted so deeply. To feel affection for someone when we had grown up scarcely to it.

Dad had been dead for nearly two years now, and the truth was, I wasn’t sixteen anymore. I wasn’t the sad little thirteen year old who hated herself more than anyone else, who climbed through the blondes window at midnight in her muddy slippers, and I wasn’t the timid toddler who could barely walk without tripping on her blanket she dragged around everywhere for a pathetic kind of comfort.

John B took it hard at first. I wanted so desperately to tell him everything. He was my older brother after all, but most days now I felt like it was my job to look out for him. It always had been. He was my brother and I would never have let him suffer, but sometimes it was hard not to wish for once I could selfishly struggle openly and degrade the man he saw as his hero.

It would be wrong for me to taint that image of a dead man, a man I still believed John B was openly grieving, even if he said he was okay now. You are never okay after losing someone like that, no matter how evil, and I think he forgets that he was still my father, even if he never saw us in the same context as he saw him.

“Thinking about how comfortable you are.” I mumbled, stretching my limbs out tiredly along his tanned skin. I laid like a lap dog on his chest, my head tucked under his chin and my hands playing with the rough fabric of his dirty t-shirt.

“Not about John B?” He prodded quietly. JJ always knew when the wheels in my head were turning, just like I could always tell when something was wrong. It was like our super powers, to know each other so well we couldn’t hide anything.

“He’ll come back, he wouldn’t leave you.” He assured softly, his fingers dancing gently along my curved spine. It felt like oddly in times like these, the calm after the storms, that it truly would always be just JJ and I against the world. Like we were the only two people who truly understood each other, through the laughter and under the deepest scars littering our skin.

“I know. He’s my brother, he wouldn’t do that.” I agreed, and just as I was about to let the serenity of the lazy swinging of the hammock lull me into a sleepy haze, the crunching of boots on leaves alerted me elsewhere.

There he stood, his clothes still grimy from the tropical heat and wet mud from Barbados. His hair was stuck to his forehead in the same curl pattern from a few days ago, but the deep rooted brunette seemed to become a shade of dirty blonde from all the harsh sun. His skin was tanned and covered in sweat, but he was still my brother, and he had finally come home.

I sat up quickly from JJ’s arms, pushing off of his chest with so much force, I felt him bend at the waist and let out a puff of air. I shouted an apology before wrapping my brother in a bone crushing hug, relief filling my stomach and the unease dispersing finally.

“Where have you been!” I pushed him away with a smile, I didn’t even notice the seriousness in his gaze as he called out for me softly.

“Are you crazy? Staying behind like that in a foreign country?” I laughed breathlessly, my eyes searching his face and settling on his lack of a smile.

“Y/n/n.” He called out again softly.

“What? Whats wrong?” I breathed out, my smile fading slightly into a dimmer smirk, confidence slipping from my face into a deep furrow between my brows.

“John B, what happened? Did someone hurt you…d-did-“ My happy touch became a panicked grip on his clothes, my knuckles white and face pale as I searched for answers.

“Y/n.” He cooed calmly, the ease between his eyes and brows calming the pace of my breath. “I found him.” He said with a soft smile.

“What?” I breathed out. “Who?”

I racked my brain for answers, mulling over every possible explanation for what could have made me stay behind, leave behind all the good that had surrounded him for the past few years, and the good that would continue to grow with him.

“Don’t tell me you forgot your own dad?” An old voice called out from behind the brush, long greasy hair and an un-groomed bears covering a good portion of his old face. From his glasses alone I could see who it was, never mind the voice that often haunted me even in my sleep, the ghostly presence that lingered even as I slept on my own.

He was a poltergeist haunting my life, torturing my soul until I bled out completely blue. Had the punishment of forcing a child to clean up his mess for over a decade not been enough karma for all the bad I hadn’t done yet? Would I forever be stuck in the broken glass of his aftermath? How much longer would I have to hide behind the shell of who I once was just to please those who don’t yet know about who I am, of who I could have become?

I decided then I couldn’t do it, and I let go of my brother, and I let go of my pride.

“No.” I spoke softly, looking between the boys. John B looked more and more like dad every day.

I watched my brother’s face crumble in confusion, my heels dragging against the dirt, I backed away like a scared dog, no longer the eager retriever with a bird at the door. My tail was between my legs.

“Y/n/n, it’s dad!” John B gestured like it would click for me, but that was not my father. Maybe by blood, but he would never be more than that to me, just evidence that linked me back to John B.

“No, I-I can’t.” I tried to explain through staggering breaths, choking out my words like tranquilized venom.

“I know it’s a lot, but everything’s going to be the way it was.”

My back hit JJ’s chest, and for the first time in the last few seconds, the ringing that blocked out my brothers bargaining seemed to fall deaf on my ears, and all I could hear was the sound of my heart beat dying in my chest.

“No, you don’t get it.” I cried out, though my eyes felt dry. “You don’t get it and you never will!” I begged silently for him to see the way the spark seemed to die as soon as dad came back, the way that my shoulders slumped and the confident young woman I had become faded back into the teenage daughter who wished for nothing more than to run far away from here.

“Y/n, come on, don’t be like this.” Dad tried to reason, like it was his say to decide how I would handle his return, like he could decide when I stopped feeling the effects of his abuse, because that was a word I had learned to call it, because that is what it was. Abuse.

“How dare you!” I shouted, anger making my skin hot. I felt queasy, like the world was crashing down on me, betrayal hot on my face. He didn’t know, my brother didn’t know because I protected him from it.

Couldn’t he ever notice how much happier I seemed after dad left? How I finally started living for the moments between us instead of for the times when I could go to sleep, where I could quietly call out for our mother who I didn’t know.

JJ knew, of course he knew. He knew by the time dad left. I’d confessed it all in a drunken ramble in the backyard after he commented on how happy I seemed, and though I laughed when I told him, neither of us found it funny. He apologized for making me feel like my problems were minuscule compared to his, but I assured him it was my own self doubt, and never his own actions. Neglectful parents raise insecure kids.

So if my best friend had known, if he could see just how happy I was without the burden of my father’s blame, how could my other half not see it? My own DNA? It led me to believe he was neglectful of me in his own ways, pushing aside the obvious signs of my own struggle just for his own benefit, for the gain of a relationship with the father that severed ours long ago.

“How dare you come back here after all the shit you put me through!” I cried, and I hit him. I hit him in the chest and I watched as he kept his ground, his shoes not even sliding against the mud. I had grown weaker without his constant fighting, and it showed in just how quickly the flame flickered out.

“How dare you come back and expect me to just be okay with it when all you’ve given me is years of therapy that I can’t afford!” I hit him in the jaw, and this time, I felt a pair of arms pull me away, my hot tears burning their tan skin. I kicked and I screamed, and my brother dragged me off until I couldn’t reach him anymore.

“You’re a piece of shit! I owe you nothing!” I pointed at him, staring him down as he rubbed the quickly blossoming bruise on his skin, his beard covering the welt almost entirely. The mark didn’t make me feel better at all, and instead, I only felt more pathetic.

“I gave you everything!” My limbs fell limp, all fight leaving my body as my tired joints ached, my head falling onto JJ’s shoulder. The boys passed me off like some kind of child, and looking at the man who tormented me my entire youth, I felt just like the timid child once again, like all my growth meant nothing.

The bright moon was replaced with the yellow glow of the kitchen lights, clouds traded in for floral curtains that hung crooked over the windows, and the cool grass fading into hard wood beneath my feet.

“Y/n, hey…” JJ cooed, his hands brushing against my shoulders.

“I just…fuck…I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why I hit him, I don’t know, I just-“

“Y/n, cupcake, hey, baby,” he called for me again, a plethora of nicknames tumbling from his lips that I had never heard him call me before, but all that held a genuine affection in them. I stopped my senseless rambling at the tenderness of his touch and softness in his voice.

“It’s okay to not be okay.” He affirmed quietly. “You earned your anger, it’s okay.”

I nodded, my gaze drifting from just beyond his shoulder were my brother stood dumbfounded with my father, looking at him with a mix of question and anger towards the man that he once saw with stars in his eyes.

“Jay, I don’t know what to do.” I confessed quietly, feeling like we were ten again, sharing secrets through a game of telephone, just the two of us stuffed in the corner of my bedroom at midnight, my father unaware that the blonde was still in the house, let alone snuck in my room.

“That’s okay.” He nodded again, and this time his palms molded against the apples of my cheeks, thumbs brushing away my stale tears.

“It’s gonna be okay, we can run, or we can stay and kick him out, or we can do nothing.” I focused on the way he said each option with the use of we, because in our minds, we always escaped hell together.

“Can we just stay here for a little longer?” My eyes found his, and I saw the way his flickered down in a way that felt too intimate for just best friends.

“We can do whatever we want, it’s you and me against the universe, cupcake, and we’re winning it.” He promised.

And just as I always had, I believed every word he said.

[grapejuicestyless]

Haunted By The Look In My Eyes

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: After a near death experience while on an adventure Y/n and JJ were supposed to be sat on the bench for, tension builds between the Pogues until finally, JJ’s reckless attitude meets Y/n’s intense feelings that can only be compared to the hopelessness JJ once felt himself.

“Guess it’s just you and me.” I rolled my eyes, the coolness from the surface of the metal shipment container doing nothing to cool down the sweltering heat that danced through the air within the four walls. Boxes of random assortments of various items plastered in rotting wood and wrapped thickly in plastic wrap.

Water clung to everything, beading down my forehead in thick droplets of sweat, the salty liquid tasting on my tongue with each swipe of it over my cracking lips. I swore if I ever had the curse of being sent to hell, this was it. This was the fiery depths of heat people spoke about, I was sure of it.

JJ was glistening too, though, he seemed used to it. Growing up with no temperature regulations in the unforgiving summer heat seems to have made him less uncomfortable by the thickness in the air, I hadn’t been lucky enough to adapt over time.

I watched him slide down against the floor, trying to get as low as possible. Heat does rise, after all. I sat opposite of him. Climbing on the crates of junk and cringing at the insufferable squeaking sounds that I could only ever compare to nails on chalkboard. I sat as close to the small opening in the container as possible without making myself known to anyone walking outside. The risk was worth it for the cool breeze of the ocean, even for just a moment.

But just as I close my eyes, swaying and praying that the heat will die down, the blond speaks.

“You know, I’ve been thinking. When all this is over, and we’re just rolling in the dough…I’m gonna get a new board and I’m gonna deck it out. And I’m gonna go on a surf trip.” His head leaned back against the crate behind him, his hair sticking to the back of his neck and his once wildly untamed hair clumping together in a wet mess.

I gave him a look, leaning forward on my palms and smiling at him, I let my eyes wander around the container.

“I don’t know where, but like, the worlds callin’.” He smiled, dissociating for a second and letting his smile fade. Slipping away for only a moment. “I don’t…name a place.” He was back, the same toothy grin as before, the same glistening shine in his blue eyes.

I thought for a second, blowing air through my lips.

“Spain.” I nodded my head.

“Then, after Spain…South America or South Africa, you know-“

“You’re gonna go to South Africa?” I interrupted with a teasing smile, partially shocked that JJ ever wanted to go away so far.

“Or one of the south places.” He defended himself. “A-and then Micronesia maybe. And then, just ride…wherever the wave takes you.” He looked down at his ring clad hands, twisting them nervously like he might have doubts that his dreams were stupid, unachievable.

I smiled at him even when he wasn’t looking because I believed everything he said. I knew that one day, he would go out just like he said and catch the best swells around the globe.

“Y’know?” He looked up finally, catching my grin.

“So that’s the plan—if we were to get a ton of cash?” I asked, looking away from him again. “That’s the dream?” I said it like a question, though, really I was agreeing with everything he said. It sounded like a dream. “Surf trip.”

“Bamboo hut…cooking a fish on a fire and…after that you go back out and just hit the waves again.” He moved his hands wildly as he spoke, building his dream in his mind with just the wiggling of his fingers. I rolled my eyes playfully.

“That’s the dream.” He confirmed, his voice lowering slightly, and I knew he was serious.

“Sounds perfect.” I agreed softly.

“Yeah.”

“Got room for one more?” I shrugged, asking honestly despite the light smile on my face. JJ simply laughed, smiling and looking back up from his lap to meet my eyes. I watched how his smile dropped when he saw how serious I was.

“You got your passport?” He asked, and it made me laugh this time.

“You don’t got a passport.” I teased.

“Hell no I don’t got a passport! The Kookiest thing ever.” He smiled, and I felt myself laughing from my stomach. A real, happy laugh that I hadn’t felt bubbling up since I was a little girl. Since before all the guns and allegations, and prison sentences, and near death experiences.

Sometimes I wondered what I would think of JJ, if I didn’t know him. Sometimes, I feared that if I had been born on the other side of the island, if my parents could afford a nicer house, if I lived just nearly two neighborhoods over, would I be just like everyone else?

Would I have thought of him as just another Maybank? Surely, if told his dreams to Topper or Kelce, they’d laugh and call him nothing greater than his old man. I thought he was a great deal more than Luke ever was, but would I think that if I had more money in my pocket?

I decided that I would, because the look in his eyes told me I would have. They were blue, sure, but they were the most trusting, truest eyes I’d ever seen. Maybe that’s why he knew he was a good liar, because he had the doe eyes down, but he couldn’t fool me any more than he could fool John B, Kiara, or Pope.

JJ Maybank had been the center of my universe since he had dropped down right front and center of me, since he had wandered into my life and claimed that we were to be best friends forever without leaving any room for argument.

I knew that I would have found him in any life. Because I know JJ Maybank better than anyone ever has, and he knows me more than I know myself.

When he sighed and fought against the “B-Team” I faked my offense, because though I knew he was itching for action, we’d get to share a tender moment like this together, just locked up in a hot box with no room the breathe and no wind to cool us down.

I craved our conversations like he craved the chaos, and I clawed my way into his heart because since the moment I met him I understood how special he was to me. He’s so, undeniably special.

“The Kookiest.” I agreed softly, letting my head fall back and my eyes close again, content with the feeling of my beating heart racing for him.

Maybe being the B-Team wasn’t the worst, because then the only worry was trying to maintain a steady temperature and keep myself from swaying my way to the floor. Heat stroke seemed a lot less scary than this.

JJ quieted me down, though, I hadn’t said a word, and his pointer pressing against his lips reminded me that maybe he shouldn’t be leading us around the boat, completely exposed to danger, and so I snuck around him and squeeze through the thin passageway, ignoring his whisper-shouting protests.

Our bodied pressed flat against the side of the upper deck walls, my head stretched around the corner to view the empty deck ahead of us.

“Clear?” He asked softly, and I nodded my head quickly.

We ran on our toes, walking light on our feet to avoid the loud slapping of boots against metal. JJ fell behind me slightly as he spun around, paranoid of the potential of someone following behind.

“Jay, come on.” I mumbled desperately, feeling the stress falling down on me.

We turned the corner quickly, JJ turning to look over the railing for John B on a lifeboat, our getaway car, only to be met with open water. Our breathing echoed between our ears, neither of us heard the harsh slapping of extra feet plowing down the stairs ahead.

“I don’t see them.” He announced, all too loudly.

I froze in the presence of a taller man with untamed hair and scruffy facial hair.

“JJ…” I warned, squaring my shoulders off as he stepped in line with me. No one made any movement for a split moment.

“Jayj…” I said a little more desperately as the man unsheathed his machete, only drawing JJ’s in closer, a fein for danger, and a junkie for risk.

“Of course…” The man began to speak, his brows furrowing. “There’s more of you.”

JJ and I shared a look, our faced contorted in an unspoken agreement that we understood the numbers here. Two against one was a safe bet, though the factor of his blade made me squirm a little.

“Get down on your knees.” The man instructed, and I wanted to laugh.

“Yeah, thats not gonna happen!” JJ’s words became shorter as he took a step back, the man’s slow approach sending both of us in fight or flight. I knew from the first glance what JJ would choose.

The man swung violently, aiming down on JJ’s shoulders with a quick blow, but missing as he ducked and shifted to the left. The machete made a loud clanging sound as it hit the metal floor.

He swung again, this time at me, but he was already off balance, swinging aimlessly at someone who wasn’t there. My hands pushed down against his arm, keeping him and the weapon pinned to the wall of the boat, right against a closed compartment that looked like it was hiding electrical cables.

Grunting as he fought against my hands, JJ wound up and struck the man with his bare knuckles, hitting him square in the jaw. His hands braced the mans shoulders, our eyes meeting in the chaotic scene, another unspoken plan shared between our glances.

“Hit him, Y/n/n!” He instructed, and as JJ pulled the man back, I opened the compartment where his hand had been, smacking him dead center in his face so hard, it echoed through my ears. I couldn’t help but grimace to myself.

“Wheres John B?” JJ shouted, his voice rough with anger. He shifted from foot to foot, hands drawn in a position ready to swing, even with the man helplessly lying on the ground.

I ran to the edge of the boat, my palms bracing myself over the edge, the empty water making my stomach drop. I wondered helplessly what was holding the others up as JJ and I fought on borrowed time.

“John B!” I shouted, my voiced strained.

I heard the sound of hair moving quickly, the cut of a blade slicing above JJ’s head as he once again ducked, but this time, we weren’t as lucky. With a kick to the gut, JJ went flying back, his head bouncing off the side of the railing. He sat with his hand cradling the back of his head.

“Y/n/n!” He alerted me. Turning on my feet, the man was closer to me than before, his gaze deadly and set solely on me.

He swung once, twice, missing with each violent stroke of the blade. I ducked the best I could, growing more confident as the pain of connection never came, but I grew too overconfident. I spend too much time with JJ, I guess.

The sting came quickly, a burning pain that ripped through my skin and sunk deep past the tissue. I screamed out in a broken cry of desperation, my fingers gripping my shoulder in agony.

The man swung again, only to be pulled away by the blond boy once again, his arms swallowing him whole from the back. Their grunts were the only other thing I could hear past the beating of my heart, yet, seeing the man elbow JJ in his sternum hurt more than the wound that bled out between my red fingers.

He had JJ winded, and with one swift turn, he tried to take me one more time.

I ducked, and watched in horror as the blunt end sent JJ flying over the edge of the boat, nearly three stories until the splash sounded from the deck.

The man came at me again, the dance becoming all too repetitive as the sole of my shoe connected with his stomach. He stumbled into the ground, lying flat. I raced to the edge, the sight below me sickening.

There JJ was, floating on his stomach, his head below the surface, unmoving and sinking slowly. The waves look him in every direction, and all that filled my mind was the silent begging that he would flip.

“JJ!” I screamed, trying to wake him as if the water wasn’t filling his ears. The water around him bubbled, the deep blue a bright white from the impact, his old tank top lifting to reveal the shape of his back.

He didn’t move, he didn’t respond, and my feet met the top of the railing on the boat. I didn’t even think, I didn’t register all the danger below the surface, how stupid it was to jump into the open water with no guarantee that John B would ever show up, but it didn’t matter because I couldn’t stop it. I was hitting the water regardless of how fearful I was of the cold.

“JJ!” Water fell out of my mouth in heaving splatters of coughing fits, my hair glued flat against my skin and my clothes clinging to every inch of my body. I would be lying if I said the impact didn’t hurt, if the salt water didn’t burn the harsh aching in my shoulder.

“Jayj!” With my good arm, I pulled the blond boy into my body, laying his head back against my shoulder to keep him above the surface, to get some air into his lungs.

“Jayj?” My other hand came to grab his face, and my thighs burned with how viciously they cut through the water, treading painfully harsh to keep us afloat. His limp body drifted against mine, and the gentle tangle of our limbs made it harder to swim.

“Jayj, stay with me!” I dropped his cheek, needing the extra hand to keep us above the water. With no help around and only the unfamiliar waters to call home, I felt a bile rise in my throat, like I could vomit if my stomach wasn’t so empty, if hungry was a feeling I had grown to know.

“Please!” I gritted my teeth, feeling my head drip under the gentle waves for a moment, it stung when I opened my eyes again. “JJ, please!” I cried out, taking in every breath of air like it was a gift.

“Stay with me, stay with me!” I grunted, using all my strength. I debated letting the water take me, if only I could extend my arms to keep him a float, I would let myself drown.

My thighs burned, and my arms were too shaky to hold on for much longer. My brows furrowed and my nose burned, a familiar ache in my lungs. I knew crying would do me no good, but as my chest became hollow, I felt my tears mix with the oceans waves drowning out my face.

Everything hurt. Hurt in a way, I could never explain. It was like I could feel each edge of my heart giving out and the sharp cuts of every wheeze that huffed past my cracking lips.

The water was red. Redder than I’d ever seen the ocean because water isn’t red. Maybe it was the cut from his head staining the once vibrant seas a dark maroon, but I could see it swirling in delicate droplets down my arm, I could feel the stickiness even in the salty surroundings.

But there was also fear. Fear that my best wasn’t enough, fear that I would become inclined to give up, because giving up is much sweeter when you have the option. Dying never is. Not even when you want to. Having the urge doesn’t make the pain less scary, and so I kick restlessly to keep the both of us up.

“John B’s coming, John B’s coming, okay?” I assured the empty crowd, JJ completely unaware of the distress of the situation as he lay lifeless in my weakened arms.

His arms floated with the movement of the ocean, his hair covering his eyes. The blond hair that I adored, ran my hands through and ruffled was darker now that it was wet. Not in the way it was when he surfed, but drenched. Stuck to his skin and covering his forehead.

With one strong kick, I gained enough power to lift us up just a bit higher from the surface. My shaky hand brushed the hair from his face.

“John B!” I call out as I steal another glance at his paling face, a red stain spreading on his temple from the blow of the blade, leaking down and staining my own cheek from how close he is to me.

“Help!”

The motor of a boat catches my ear, but my lungs have given up and I’ve already sunk so far below the water, our heads are barely breaking surface.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I pant out, my eyes shutting like it would do us any good. I could have let him go, I could have carried my own weight a moment longer, but with every doubting thought, my hands only held onto him tighter, a silent refusal to give up on him, even if it meant letting the darkness consume me.

Kiara would have yelled at me, and been proud all at once. She would have called me stupid for risking my life for someone so reckless, but then she would have clapped me on the back and said it was what any of us would have done. Pogues for life and all that.

I really missed her now, I wished she was here to scold me, I wished I wasn’t so alone.

“Hey! JJ!” A chorus of cries for us rang throughout the distance, the motor boat approaching as the others all cried out for JJ, my head slipping below the waves.

“No, no, no, no!” John B’s voice broke, the weight on my shoulder lifting, I saw Pope and John B lift him from the water through the stinging of my blurry vision, I felt him leaving my grip, but my hands only grabbed onto him harder.

Subconsciously, I couldn’t let him go. It was only hurting the both of us, we were saved, the Pogues finally finding their way to us, but part of my brain couldn’t comprehend that it was all ending soon because it was all going black. My vision, my heart, my mind.

But just before the water could suck me down, Kiara pulled me on board, her hands grabbing onto me like I had grabbed onto JJ.

“Y/n, holy shit.” Her voice shook with concern. Where her knuckles had held onto me, where my shirt was wrinkled wetly between her fingers, came the slow oozing of deep maroon down my skin, staining everything it touched.

It smeared around with every rock of the boat, and I swore I felt myself swaying. Kiara said something about the depth of the wound, how she thought she saw bone. It blurred like my vision, my lips parting only to shut at the sound of Pope and John B’s distress.

JJ laid still with his head propped up against the edge of the boat, eyes shut just as they were in the water, his eyelashes laying curled against his wet cheek.

The sight gave me a second wind, my hands craved to feel the weight of his body in my arms, to feel the warmth of his skin against my finger tips tor remind me he was here.

“JJ, no, come on!” I begged through broken tears. “Please, get up!” My hands tapped on his chest, though I was ready to press my lips against his and give him all my air if I needed to.

I crawled to him like I needed him to breathe, my knuckles scraping across the bottom of the boat, bruises and cuts littering my pruning skin. I clung to him like a vice, my lips wobbling like a child.

“Get up!” I shouted, scolding him like a mother. Yet, the brokenness of my voice seemed to carry into his empty head as his drool spilled out of his lips, spitting up onto his chest as he gained his bearings.

It was gross, the salt water mixed with the slimy drool dripping from his mouth and wetting his soaked tank top beyond what it was, but I had never seen a more relieving sight. My best friend drooling all over himself, but god, he was alive and that’s all that mattered.

The boat seemed to fall quiet for a moment, all in awe of his return, all following the wavering gaze that swept over the small boat. He was out of it, for sure. His eyes carrying a sense of question beyond what he usually held, but as he registered the faces around him as his closest friends, his family, the panic seemed to fade into a mellow knowing.

“Yeah, yeah! Cough it out, cough it out baby!” John B encouraged, a sea of instructions following from the others in a desperate hurry, all reaching over to simply feel for a steady thumping of a pulse.

I sat back on my heels, looking down at him, and revoking my warm touch from his chest quickly. Retracting it with uncertainty that it would hurt him, like he was fragile.

“Welcome to the land of the living, dude.” Pope smiled, earning a side eye from JJ as he looked around to find his friends all looking down at him with concerned gazes.

My fingers shook, hovering over his chest like I didn’t know if it was right to touch him, if I had the right. I’d felt my own chest caving in just minuted ago, I wondered if I dared to rest my palms against his skin, would he feel the same?

I laid a hand on his shoulder, and watched his vision dance from where we touched to my face, taking a moment to breathe in my presence.

“Hi.” I breathed out in relief, but also something deeper that I didn’t have the words to describe.

“‘Sup.” JJ said, his usually cool demeanor meaning nothing to me at the moment. I pushed his head away gently, still all too aware of the wound leaking from his temple, the way the blood seemed to stain everything. His hair, his skin, his stupid shirt. It tainted everything good with the memories of the bad, the unforgettable, the hurt. But I couldn’t stay away for too long.

As soon as the smile cross his golden features, my arms wrapped around his face like a blanket, holding him to my chest to feel how fast he had my heart beating. He didn’t mention the drumming against his ear, but the warmth that spread across his face told me he felt it, he knew the feeling all too well. Maybe if I had the courage to rest my hands over his heart, I would have known.

I thought of the surf trip, of his dreams, of the gold, of everything that he ever wanted, and I sweat at the thought of it never happening. I crumbled at the idea of him not getting to be a forever given in my life, of him only being a fraction of time, when I wanted it all.

“Don’t ever do that again.” I mumbled against his wet hair, but I don’t think he heard it over the chatter between him and John B, the laughter from Sarah all too loud to hear my soft whisper, a confession that really wasn’t much, but carried the weight of all my emotions.

If he did, he didn’t mention it. He was good at not mentioning it, but he was bad at forgetting.

“You’re bleeding all over the sand, Y/n.” Sarah pointed out, stepping out of the boat, allowing JJ and her husband-to-be to drag the long dead motorboat onto the shore.

An island to call home and a tropical paradise to explore for however long the summer would last and the warmth would suffice.

I was the first to let the water reach my shins, practically jumping out of the boat in a rush, an overwhelming need to feel the ground between my toes, to rinse off the grime and hurt from the failed mission. One cross gone and another home taken.

My body lay starfish position on the soft surface, my shoulder still open and aching, but dulling over time. It didn’t feel that bad anymore, and I was sure the ringing in my ears was just from the adrenaline, though, I’d never heard it before.

“That’s nasty, shes right.” Kiara agreed, trying to tug me up by the arm, only to stretch out my collar bone and earn a lazy grunt from my lips. If I were as smart as I had been prior to the stress, prior to the fact of the pact of the B Team, prior to all the shared dreams and promises to make it out, I would have asked Cleo or Pope to help mend my wounds.

Now, I just felt ready to die. Let my life wash away into the open ocean and let the jellyfish drink me up. Let the sea turtles consume me and share the same bliss of a high that I did with my friends.

“Circle of life.” I grunted, my cheek covered in sand, I buried my face into the dirt. “It’s an early Thanksgiving for the seagulls.”

“You’re so dramatic.” Kiara kicked my hip lightly, trying to move the rock of a being I had become.

“Yeah, and not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving.” Cleo joked from a distance, already gathering wood and stone for a fire. It would be dark soon anyway.

“My joints hurt.” I complained drowsily.

“No shit, I can practically see your bone. Get up.” Kiara fought, turning her head to call for back up from someone with the power to move me from my dormant headspace.

“John B, Pope!” Kiara called out with an annoyed expression, and I found myself smiling at the way her face grew fuzzier and the sounds all became one loud booming ring in my ears.

It hurt so good, a warmth covering my body like a blanket, a reward after fighting so hard. If death found me, I found it peaceful. Ready to be consumed by the darkness to avoid the haunting memory of the limp body floating in my arms. To forget about the way my heart clenched beyond repair.

It wasn’t like, it was love. I’d always known it deep down, but now I knew I could put a name to the feeling, and it terrified me. Because it replayed every second of JJ’s life slipping away, and somehow, it left out the part where he came to.

I could barely make out the shape of the trees anymore. Everything became one big collage in the sky.

“John B! JJ!” Kiara looked back, stunned by the look in my eyes, the same look that had been in JJ’s before he was taken by the waves. A look that would have haunted me for a lifetime. It now tormented Kiara.

It was a look of slipping, of giving up, giving out. The end, even.

“Help!” She cried out desperately, watching the clumsy boys scramble to the ground and catch their bearings, hands digging through the dirt to get to me.

“What happened?” Pope called out, his concerned hands holding Kiara’s shoulders and his love sick gaze failing to focus on what really matters.

Isn’t that funny? I spent all my time focused on JJ, my own gaze stuck in the permanent focus of only him. I didn’t even care to feel the pain tearing away at my skin and my bones. I barely even noticed it after a while. It became nothing compared to the something I almost lost.

Now, as I lay in the sand, choking on my breath in agonizing pain that slowly seeps through in waves, I watch through blurred vision as Pope does the same.

It seemed that it just now snapped in everyone’s mind that the maroon pooling around my arm wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like the scrapes from sharp rocks in the surges, or the nasty head wounds from countless drunken dares to climb things that shouldn’t even be looked at while sober.

The bubbling, and the smell, the metaling smell, it was sickening, and it wasn’t normal. Adrenaline can only get you so far, and hell, I’d already spent it all up.

“Y/n/n!” I heard a familiar voice, rough with exhaustion but stronger now that the day was beginning to wash over and the pain was beginning to creep away.

His dirty hands pressed hard against my skin, his delayed nature only slipping his hand over the one place it shouldn’t have been. Touch me anywhere, make me feel okay, like this isn’t really the end, but please, don’t dig your fingers around in the wound I have just for you.

It only makes things harder to mend.

“JJ!” Sarah screamed, and I threw my head back, screaming.

It hurt worse than anything, the feeling of nail against flesh. It stung more than any jellyfish and it scratched sharper than any knife. Thousands of needles shot down my veins, my knuckles stuttering into a pitiful fist.

“Stop! Stop!” I cried, my whole body shaking—no, my whole body collapsing in on itself. Folding into the earth in order to run away from the pain.

“I’m trying to help, stop squirming like a fish!” He stressed, the creases by his brow showing the wear from the evening already, we all felt as though we’d aged a century in a minute.

“Get off of me!” I tried to reach over, I didn’t want his dead hands on my cold body. I didn’t want his limp fingers rubbing against my moving joints. I didn’t want to feel what I felt in the water, and I didn’t want to see it either.

“Please, get off!” I shouted, my voice breaking like a fragile thing. A thin layer, a brittle sheet of clay crumbling under the weight of the hands that once so tenderly shaped it.

Dying does a funny thing to the mind, especially in a panic. You spend all your time trying to remember to breathe, you forget reality. Even though he was kneeling down beside me, digging around under my skin and arguing back harshly words he meant as sentiment in his overwhelming stress, to me, I had convinced myself he was dead. I didn’t do it, I couldn’t save him, I let those thoughts of giving up consume us and I watched him die in my arms.

There is no boat ride, there is no island, there is no nothing. There is only before, and the end. There is no after. Forget the fact the blood is sticking to everything, and the fact that I’ve felt John B’s cold rings slapping hard across my cheekbones to keep me aware of myself, everything is all nothing and I hear nothing but the sound of my ragged breath wheezing and my horrible cries echoing, bouncing off the Pogues.

Pope took over, finally getting his brains back. The scarecrow held firm pressure over the wound, evenly spread along my arm in a way that stung, but never scratched, never matted the fur of my mane or cut off my skin. He spoke so quickly, and it was so muffled, I began to want to hear him, take the trip down the yellow brick road and find the courage to stay.

Then, there was the ripping of a shirt. It was dark, and rough, but worn in so it felt softer that way. Then, more pain, more pressure, and then, nothing.

But this wasn’t death, because I could still hear and feel and taste the spit on my tongue, the salt water that washed everything I bit down on away. I was still there, but now, I could feel myself calming down, drowning out the silence and coming back to the truth.

“Have you considered a career as a EMT?” I panted, my heavy eyes flickering up to Popes reforming face, the hay and the straw hat fading away into just the kind boy I loved. The yellow road becoming the soft, now wet, sand beneath my back.

He smiled like a dope, clicking his tongue and showing his toothy grin. Relief was the only word to describe the silence that fell over the group at that moment, silence that felt heavy to everyone but the victim. Silence that I felt on the boat.

“I hate you.” He laughed, punching me between the ribs with a force that only could be equated to the fact that he wasn’t a liar, and it was obvious he was on the math team, not an athlete.

“No you don’t.”

My body curled up in laughter, nose scrunched and aware of the extreme caution that was required to keep my arm from splitting apart. I tried to argue back, but my words fell short on choked laughter, letting Kiara hoist me up by the waist and feeling her wet bracelets press against my warm skin. JJ simply walked away, all too quiet for a boy who never knew silence in his life.

I didn’t press him.

“Can I sit?”

Days had passed, water lapped at the shore, quenching the insurmountable thirst of the dry land before it. The wind blew softly against the greenery, and the birds sung out, diving into the distant waters for their supper.

JJ sat with his knees pulled to his chest, arms thrown over the bend lazily, hands fiddling with a sharpened stick he had been working incessantly on since he’d finished his first project, a white waving flag that read, Pougelandia.

The wind blew up the end of his shirt, a cut off tank top that once fell to his mid thigh now rested loosely at his tanned hips, ripped unevenly across the dark stitching.

He breathed evenly, eyes not even flickering over to meet mine, not a word shared between us. A dream of surf expenditures and found family adventures. We talked of island paradise when all smoothed over. When the earth buried our blood and tears, and the sting began to slip away.

There was happiness, beyond the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror of the swift nightfall, the impending cold that would have brought any surviving energy away from our warm bodies. There was calm.

He promised to make boards with dried wood, to carve them by hand, break them with his knuckles. The wood was rotting, and it was cracking quickly.

Once again, dreams were altered to fit the shitty hand that was dealt. The rich became richer, and our frames became thinner.

The world spat in our face and said it was the wind.

I sat down beside him now, and it was unusually quiet between us. I guess, this was better than the forever silence, the six feet of separation that I wanted nothing more than to leave behind. He couldn’t even see me.

“Did I do something?” I asked quietly, voiced drowned out by the sound of the sea, the distant hollers of our friends echoing above the trees. I wished I could see everything for what it is, but I had not a clue, a fool sitting beside my uncharacteristically empty best friend.

“No.” He answered plainly.

“No?” I asked, begged practically for confirmation. He nodded his head, agreeing, but it was unclear if it was an agreement within a disagreement.

“Are you sure?”

“Yup.” He popped the ‘p’, bitter, I could see it more clearly now in my new found focus.

“I can’t make it go away if you don’t tell me, Jay.” I smiled, laughing like it was a pity for us to be so awkward. And it was, it was so fucking weird. Fake niceties are weird.

Leaning forward to mirror how he sat, I tried to get a forward perspective of the furrow between his brows. He brushed the space below his nose and sniffed like he was annoyed. It reminded me of the boy who held up the cross with his bare hands on the ship, the boy who had aimed a gun at the kids he grew up with, his own sister too. His anger reminded me a lot of a Camerons anger, and I figured he had enough reason to feel stressed, he had all the reason to show it.

“This isn’t Kildare.” I reminded him.

“I know.”

“It’s just us.” I added.

“I know.” He nearly snapped, fingers tingling with annoyance, anger, grief even. It was a dying fuse ready to explode, to burn it all down.

We sat in silence for a moment, and I hoped he would speak. Rarely, we had fights. Usually they were stupid, ending in us laughing and my hips thrown over his shoulder. He never hit and neither did I, neither of us even tempted the idea. If we needed space, we gave it, though, it never lasted long because we craved each other like a dog to its owner. Like a moth to a flame, we always came back.

Still, I hoped he would speak first. I felt like I was doing most of it, carrying the conversation for five people while only speaking to one. When he remained quiet, trying to reel it in, I broke the tension.

“You can tell me what’s wrong, Jay. I’ll be here. It’s not like I could leave even if I wanted to.”

If I hadn’t lost my life, I had lost my ability to read the room, because my weak joke fell so flat, it might as well have served as the boards we never got to make together, the memories we would never get to experience. It rotted into his mind and left something so disgusting to him, I could read it on his face.

“No, no but you could.” Sand kicked up behind his heels, hands pushing up off of his knees, knuckles bruised and palmed sandy. He was scruffier than usual, but the blues of his eyes were all the same, dappled with the flickers of light I had fallen in love with so long ago.

“What?” I laughed, standing up slowly, but then jerking forward once I saw how quickly he was creating distance between us.

If we weren’t alone then, I was sure he had led us into total solidarity.

The trees were thicker here, the shoreline rocky and short, even at low tide. It would be completely gone in a few minutes when the tide would start rolling in. I could feel the water trying to break free against the soles of my shoes every time a larger wave came crashing through, between the overhangs and vines that tried and failed to barricade the sacred land.

“Because you did leave, Y/n. You left.”

JJ turned around, his hand pointing to my heart and his eyes avoiding contact where the cloth was wound tightly around my skin and bone. The shirt he tore to let me wear and to let me feel put together again. He stepped closer, closing the distance between us.

I caught the way his eyes seemed to shine more delicately in the reflection of the ocean, the way the wind blew against his blonde locks, the same shining color as his heart of gold. A loyal, fiercely protective friend who was crumbling at the mere idea that abandonment could always win, even though the people he believed would never leave.

“You left.” He repeated more quietly, his lower lip wobbling with such an intensity, I felt the bile rising up in my throat.

“I didn’t leave.” I defended quietly between choked breaths. “How could you think I would leave? I would never leave you, I wouldn’t want to.”

“Then what was that then?”

His head turned to look out at the horizon, biting down harshly on his teeth and sucking in a sharp breath through his nose. His weight shifted from left to right, fists clenching and unclenching by his side, conflict evident in his face. His brows were drawn in so tightly, his face scrunched up almost like he was in pain, like he couldn’t even fight anymore, I watched the internal battle between strength and hurt argue over who got control over his brain. I could tell which had already won his heart.

“I watched you there, Y/n. I saw the…the blood and the tears. I saw all of it, you were dead. You died.”

I shook my head, feeling a familiar lump forming in the base of my throat. Everything seemed to burn. From my sweaty palms to the flare of my nostrils and the back of my skull. It all ached dully, inflamed by the accusation that I had truly given up, that I had been gone with no intention to come rescue him.

“I was there.” My voice broke, my eyebrows pulled down in a deep frown. My palm instinctively came to cup my wound, and my fingers cupped around the fabric, pulling down gently to let the pain breathe.

Never in our decade of friendship had I ever felt so alone from JJ. We were on other worlds and it was clear, and it was something I hated being accustomed to. We were so alike, but so different in this moment. Together but so far apart. Like January and December, one after the other, following like ducks but with the distance of a lifetime between.

“I was there, I saw you standing over me.”

“You pushed me away, you didn’t need me! You didn’t want me. I saw the look in your eyes. You wanted to leave. You were okay with leaving!” JJ shouted, his voice booming. I wondered if it had the power to carry over to the others and reveal our argument to everyone. We were too far away, and I was thankful for that because I knew whatever was coming wasn’t going to be kind. I could feel the bubbling pressure building in my chest like a hot rock sizzling my flesh from the inside out, and it wanted to sink through if I didn’t spit it out.

“Can you blame me?” I cried out, tears falling from my water line in a stream of pain that cut deeper than any blade had. “I was in pain, JJ! I was in so much fucking pain! I was bleeding out, in a place I don’t know, and I’ve never felt more alone! I couldn’t breathe, JJ. I couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t see. Why is it selfish to not want to want to suffer, when I would wish you the same peace if it were to happen to you.”

JJ’s chin wrinkled in sadness, wetting his lips with his tongue and blinking back his own tears. I had so much to say and only so much air in my lungs. Only so much I could choke on before it all came out.

“The worst part is, I thought you were dead. If the damn blade didn’t kill me, you would have because I would rather die than have to live the next eternity without you by my side. I thought…I thought I failed you, and I couldn’t even look anyone in the eye because all I could see was your face in the water. Do you know how terrifying that was? To have your limp body weighing me down in the ocean? My best friend, my buddy, the only person I’d ever want to bother me like you do. Dead, all because of me? Do you know how guilty I’ve been? How guilty you’ve made me? I’m a god damn monster, and it’s a shame I turned out like I did because I had the potential to be something like you. But I can’t be because I’m a failure. Because even for even for a moment, I was thinking that maybe we would both be better off if I just gave up? If I let the ocean take us because god, if the light hasn’t been kind then the darkness can at least give me some damn peace!”

We both fell quiet now. My chest heaved with anxiety. My bones felt heavy, I felt heavy. I felt stupid, and I knew nothing I was saying made sense. It was all mindless rambling about everything I’d been mulling over for what felt like years.

“I love you. A-and I mean that in a way that I’ve never known before, and that fucking terrifies me. It terrifies me that theres always a chance that one day I won’t have the privilege to lay next to you, or-or to sit with you on the porch at John B’s and just talk about things that don’t matter like they do. Like, I love you, dude! And I can’t act like I don’t anymore. I thought…I thought that if I pushed it down, if I ignored it then maybe I could forget about it, but I can’t. Because the truth is I’ve always loved you. And I’m sorry if this means everything has been a lie, if I’m a fraud but I can’t pretend like I wouldn’t die for you, because I would and I tried.”

“I’m sorry, what?” JJ breathed, eyes wide and lips parted. He was shocked, and so was I. There was no going back, it was eat the words or let the words eat me. The truth was out, and I couldn’t deny it.

“I love you.”

Silence. Every moment led me here, to this island. Every time I grabbed onto the back of his jacket to steady myself, or the times I pawed at his chest to get him to stop trying to antagonize the Kooks. I followed him to the ends of the earth, literally. That was proof of my love, if not, it proved my devotion.

“I’m sorry.” JJ whispered back. His eyes shined with freckles of light from the waves and the stars and the sun. He couldn’t say it back, and I knew why because I know him, but we both knew what he meant to say with his apology.

“Me too.” I breathed out.

Often, our friends would poke fun that we couldn’t keep it under wraps around each other. That our lingering touches and fleeting glances were too romantic to be a friendly gesture. Maybe part of their teasing was right, but not completely.

Stepping forward in the sand, I felt the warmth of his arms pulling me into his chest, the strength and the kindness familiar, but the touches deeper and different. Where we once dappled with affection became a feeling that dominated now. We’d stood like this before, but with the confession hanging between our lips, everything was different.

His breathing, his gaze, the curve of his lips, the tucking of his nose against my cheek. We bumped noses blindly, his fingers dancing up my spine to the small of my back. I felt his eyelashes tickle my skin before I felt the rough-soft mixture of his lips pressing against mine.

It felt like something out of a movie, like fantasy. All those stupid stories I’d never believed where the lovers fit together perfectly made complete sense now as we molded together with a dance we knew all too well.

My hands reached for the back of his neck desperately, pawing at whatever curves I could get a grip on. It was slow, a steady pour of the heart into each other and completely intoxicating up until the moment we split apart for air.

“I should die more often if you’ll kiss me like that.” I joked, laughing into the crook of his neck.

“Nah, you don’t gotta do all that anymore.” He promised.

Affection was never our thing, love was foreign and forgiveness came hard. We held grudges and fought secrets for each other, and in the end, it’s what made us make perfect sense.

I look at JJ now in the dimming light above the ocean, and I no longer see the reflection of his empty gaze and heavy body. I see adoration, a softness that I’d always failed to recognize before.

“Jay?” I mumbled, chasing his lips again. He hummed against my skin, warm air tickling my body.

“Save it for the surf trip, okay?” I teased.

He growled playfully, squeezing the curves of my hips and nipping at my shoulder.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.”

I laughed.

“I’d save you.”

“Maybe.” JJ smiled, beaming with love.

After a moment of silence in each others arms, I felt his chest expand with a calm breath, and the stutter in mine silenced whatever thought he was about to blurt out impulsively.

“We should probably really consider getting passports.” I suggested softly, still longing for the surf trip with my best friend.

“Hell no, thats some kook bullshit” He argued softly, his smile still stretched against my skin.

“The kookiest.” I agreed.

I felt JJ pull away to breathe in the salty air. His eyes remained trained on mine, and the look gave me deja vu to a time not so long ago. A look we shared in the sweltering confinements of the cargo ship container. Only, now that I wasn’t blinded by a mixture of excitement for the treasure and the fear of failure, I could see the real gold in front of me. I could understand the gravity of his gaze.

A look that would fluster me for a life time.

[grapejuicestyless]

Wishes Do Come True

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: It was just a legend, something out in place to make people believe in something that couldn’t be true. But when fate has its way, JJ learns that sometimes, wishes do come true. CONTAINS SEASON 4 SPOILERS!!!

Ryan shot the gun first. He shot it because Ward was charging at him, his teeth bared and his arms spread wide. How fitting that he would go out as a somewhat decent father, a man who took three bullets and threw himself over a cliff to save his daughter and her Pogue best friends.

JJ remembers the feeling of the earth bending beneath his feet as he practically sprinted over to the edge, looking down past his feet to see where the Kook and the henchman lay. JJ thought it was strange, how someone could be so crumpled up, he knew bones weren’t made to bend that way, so seeing the way his body twisted made him a little sick.

He can hear Sarahs soft cries and echoing hiccups clearly, how Kiara seemed to grab onto herself to steady her breathing. He remembers seeing how tightly John B’s arms were woven around Sarah’s body, as if he were afraid she would jump next, as if her body could save his. There was no saving that, as sick as it was.

But what he really remembers, is the softness of her voice calling out for him, the way her voice shook like it was hard to get out. Only then did the sounds of his friends stop ringing in his ears, and through some champagne party effect, he could focus in on just the quietness of her. Only then did he realize as he tried to wrap his arm around thin air that she wasn’t at the ledge.

A stray bullet, it’s a funny thing. The shots fire, four, the last four bullets the man has, and only three reach the sacrificial lamb. The last one reaches one of the seven targets behind it.

Her hands shook over her upper stomach, gripping her skin just below her ribs. Even with a shaky focus, he could see the tint of red beginning to seep past her once light blue nails, now chipped and digging into the cloth of her shirt.

“JJ, I…I don’t…” She stumbled forward, her eyes flickering from his to some distant thing over his shoulder. She could barely focus her vision. He remembers the weight of her head hitting his shoulder as he caught her, the feeling of an extra warmth seeping into his own clothes, something wet and sticky that shouldn’t be drenching the two of them, but was.

“No, no, no. Come on cupcake, come on.” He gritted his teeth, trying to hold her up, but his need to keep her up was wavering at the look of agony on her face. She laid in his lap, his hand holding hers as they both pressed down on the wound, though, it was no use because they had no way home, and the nearest hospital wasn’t for miles. They had no idea where to even begin to search for one in the middle of all the greenery.

JJ rambled in a panic, a habit he’d always done, but she couldn’t make sense of it anymore. Her hearing was fuzzy and her vision came in and out in waves of darkness. She tried to look at her friends, but her eyes wouldn’t tear themselves away from her best friend’s face.

She had just gotten him, their love was still brand new, discovered on an island they were sure they would never find again. It was barely a month since they had shared a kiss under the stars, one both had been dreaming of for years. They went back and forth for what felt like centuries and now none of it mattered, because JJ was holding his love in his arms as she helplessly spat up blood and tried to focus on the blue of his eyes and not the tears on his face.

“It’s gonna be okay, you just gotta fight, you can fight. You fucking…” JJ broke out into a bitter laugh, one he didn’t mean as his palms messily wiped away the blood that trickled down her jaw. Red smeared everywhere, sticking to every crease in his skin. It burned, and so he kept smiling because his laughter, as disingenuous as it was, brought a weak smile to her face. “You saved my life, when I fell off that boat. You kept me alive, and I’m gonna keep you alive, so don’t give up on me.”

The sight of the tears finally spilling from her pretty eyes would forever haunt JJ, because he knew as her chest caved in against his lap, that the pain was too great to make her stay and suffer through, when they both knew she was as good as dead as soon as the gun was fired.

“It doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.” She had told him weakly, the initial throbbing turning into an intense burning, a mix of the powder and the blood that pooled around her, soaking his skin through his pants.

“N-no, come on baby…baby, cupcake, please.” He pleaded. “I love you, please.”

Her ears seemed to clear at his heavy confession, and a sweet smile, the sweet smile he had fallen for back in the third grade, graced her pretty, tired face one last time.

“I love you JJ.” She promised, blinking back the tears. Somehow, she found the strength to lift his hand from her wound and press her bloodied lips to his sticky palm.

He had to watch the way her eyes fluttered shut, one last choked breath that sounded similar to what Pope would later explain as death rattle breathing, escaped her mouth, and that sweet little smile faded into nothing as she laid dead in her best friends arms.

JJ was never quite the same after that. He still loved his friends, he was still reckless and loud and impulsive, but he seemed to do it all for her.

When they won their money finally, he thought of all the things he would’ve bought for her, all the beaches they could’ve surfed across. When he finally found a place to call home, he placed her pillow on her side of his bed, fluffed it up for her and swore some nights he could feel her head resting on his heavy chest.

He thought of how much she would have loved Poguelandia 2.0. It was bittersweet to see the flag because all he could think of was their first kiss under the white flag that waved proudly above them.

He missed their matching P4L stick and pokes, he hated that he had to look at his forever and know it no longer matched with anyone. He hated that everyone else around him had someone to lean on, a lover to come home to, when he knew he would never be able to love again. But most importantly, he hated how young she was. She was only nineteen.

John B told him it wasn’t about the time we had with those we have lost, but what we make of it, but JJ was too angry to care. He didn’t care, it was easy for John B to say when he had lost a best friend, but JJ had lost so much more.

He wore her charm bracelet on his wrist, even though it was tight and caused a lot of noise. He loved the charms on them because they were old and made of clay and they matched his rings and necklace. She made them when they were ten because they were too young for their tattoos.

He swore to never go after treasure again, he couldn’t risk it, but with the promise of a singular wish, JJ followed along like a duckling to Morocco, blood on his shirt and a new father to betray him.

“You know, they say the crown grants a wish.” Kiara broke the silence between them in the heat one day, looking up at the sky to avoid the awkwardness of eye contact. She didn’t have to ask to know he would wish for her back in a heartbeat, but she did anyway because truthfully she liked the way JJ talked about her. It made her feel like her best friend was still alive.

“Yeah?” JJ scoffed with a smirk. “What would you wish for?” He asked, leaning over the unstable ledge, bricks dusty and the cement breaking apart. It wobbled under his forearms.

“I’m not saying I believe it but…I’d wish to go back in time maybe. I’d try not to rush into everything.” She said calmly, her eyes finding JJ’s.

“What about you?” She asked softly, and JJ hummed.

“The thing about wishes is, they don’t come true if you say them.” Kiara laughed breathily at his words.

“Yeah?” She questioned for confirmation.

“Yeah.” He breathed out. “And I really want this one to come true.”

That phrase, “be careful what you wish for,” was made for people like JJ Maybank.

There’s this old game called “Monkeys Paw” that Y/n and JJ both loved when they were younger. One person would make a wish, and the goal of the game was to make that person regret that wish.

They would stay up for hours laughing about it.

If JJ wished for a pizza, the pizza was poisoned. If Y/n wanted a dog, it was rabid. They’d spend hours at a time waking up the neighbors just laughing at how outrageous they could make the faults.

Now that they were older, and now that Y/n was gone, JJ seemed to forget about the rules of the game.

He stumbled back, all air caught in his throat. He lost the crown, and he’d lost his girl, and now, here his biological father was with a knife twisted deep into his abdomen, pulling it out with a sickening crunch.

Kiara pleaded for him to keep fighting, her hands on the wound in a way that reminded him of the way he desperately pressed against Y/n’s all those weeks ago. Her cries were just as desperate, and they were just as fuzzy.

JJ now felt thankful he let her go peacefully, because living through the pain was insufferable, and he knew it would have been cruel to make her fight it any longer.

He cried a little, but he wasn’t sad. No, he was happy, even as Kiara screamed for Pope and John B, begging for help that would do no good because just like his precious Y/n, there was no way home and no help in sight.

He let out a hiccup, and his eyes focused on her brown ones as his vision cleared for a moment, the sting turning into a familiar burn.

“Kie, I never told you my wish.” He smiled, and she shook her head.

“No, Jayj, come on, you gotta fight it. I can’t lose you too.” She pleaded, and it was like he wasn’t even listening as he kept choking out words.

“I already got what I wished for.” He smiled.

All he ever wanted was a home, and though every sacred place he ever had to call that were short lived and destroyed, he had found it in the people who loved him, and the people he loved.

JJ wished for so much more than anyone thought, and he’d gotten all of it.

He had you at one point, and he was eternally grateful for every hug he ever received from your loving arms. He had Pope and John B, who made him laugh like no one else ever could, his ribs sore and his stomach shaking. Kiara and Sarah kept him grounded. He was grateful for how much they cared, how safe he felt around them. He knew he would miss his best friends more than anything else, he would miss them like family, because thats what they were.

The Pogues were his family, and his family was his home.

JJ wished for one last thing with the crown as the darkness took him. He slipped away from his body, his head lulling to the side as Kiara shook him, but he wasn’t there anymore, and he wasn’t afraid because there she was.

Kneeling beside Kiara and she didn’t even know, there she was, her sweet smile and her pretty eyes. She was holding both Kiara’s hand, and his hand, nothing more than wind to them on the ground, but now JJ could see her, and now he could hold her.

“Y/n? Cupcake?” He breathed out with a smile, the luckiest man in the world, even if his toes didn’t physically touch the dirt or the sand anymore.

“Jay…” She smiled back, a sweet sound falling past her lips, and it was simply half of his name.

As his arms wrapped around her tightly, his nose buried into her shoulder. It felt good to know that he would never have to let her go again, and that someday, his friends would have the same pleasure of holding him again too.

JJ’s wish had been a little greedy, because in addition to what he was already granted, he wished to be with Y/n again.

He guess he never really specified how but hey, wishes really do come true.

[grapejuicestyless]

What If I Don’t Know?

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: In an alternate universe where the pogues gave up the hunt after their win with El Dorado, Y/n breaks free of the island dream and runs off the college. Only to find that maybe, being away isn’t what she wanted after all.

My boots danced across the thick yellow lines on the deep black pavement. The traffic lights were flickering yellow, reflecting off of the void and rippling across the building puddles by the clogged sewer drains. An intersection at midnight, no dead stop and no definite go. Just the trust that the other cars wouldn’t blow past the warning signs. The trust that metal was made to bend, to rupture to save a life.

I didn’t have a car, I couldn’t afford one, and I never needed one. Everything I ever wanted was always just a few steps away. Laughter used to echo through the halls and cold rings hit the doors repeatedly. You grow used to people that way. Used to the sound of their footsteps, of their breath. You know who’s on the other side of the door always when you memorize the pattern of their movement.

JJ promised me once that we’d make one. We would run our way down to the junkyard and pick out old parts of cars and Frankenstein them together into a piece of shit that would run like a dream.

That was something I missed. The smell of gasoline. Maybe that’s why I stumbled down through the college town, balancing between the thin stripe of black between yellow and twirling in the center where road met road. Maybe I was looking for that bitter smell to remind me of home. The image of JJ bent under the hood of a truck. The same Ford that sat broken in the front yard for years, the sound of metal twisting and the breathy grunts with each violent twist of the wrench. It would run like new one day, he swore. I never doubted him, and I still don’t. One day, we’ll run down to that junkyard, a graveyard for cars, and we’ll find that missing piece.

Rain dripped from the bridge of my nose, falling on my soaked shoes and flattening out my fuzzy socks. Everything up North was colder. Maybe it was because of how bitter people were. The semi-warm summers and the sweltering months of autumn, only for the two week beach bliss to be swiftly replaced with a harsh winter that didn’t let up until the next summer. Cold nipped at my nose. I felt bitter the longer I was here, which was weird because when I was sixteen, I could have sworn this place was home.

Then again, I had never really been anywhere long enough to know what home really was. Everywhere I went became rushed by the sweet adventure that was chasing riches. Maybe it was the idea of settling down that intrigued me. To be sat in one place for a while and to slow down, to increase my chances of living through my twenties without some pirate knocking on my front door, a gun to my head. But this wasn’t home, this wasn’t settling. This was restlessness mixed with a deep urge to find something like home. An emptiness emotionally that I just couldn’t understand.

Like a dog chasing its own tail, I felt stupid, and I myst have looked drunk dancing among the silence of my college town. I should have been happy, this should have been home. I got out, I got what Kiara always dreamed of, I sought out a higher education, a dream that Pope had thrown away. My record was clean and my future had meaning. I should have been ecstatic to receive this opportunity, after all the grief and death and scandals of my childhood, a stage in my life that was stripped away by all the realities that unraveled with each new treasure found. But, I wasn’t. Even then, sick, dirty, and cold, I wasn’t happier than then now.

I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. In the dormitories, in the bathrooms, in the halls. It’s me, or, a version of that girl. She has my hair, and we share the same eyes, same curve of our lips too. But she’s hollowed out, gutted, and so indescribably not me. Different, not greater, but worse. I think of packing my bags quite often. Going quietly and without a fuss. To swallow my pride and withdraw my debt I would surely acquire if I stay any longer here at some institution I knew I couldn’t afford the moment I sent in my letter.

My roommate would be disappointed, but she’d move on. She doesn’t know me, she understands the concept of me, but she doesn’t know me. She’s nice enough, keeps her room clean, which inspires me to do the same. She brushes her hair regularly, almost obsessively, and is really pretty. We get along fine. We are friends, to a degree, but we are sure to find other roommates and never speak again. Still, I wonder if she would be mad if I left without telling her.

JJ was mad when I told him. He didn’t like the idea of abandonment. Though, I promised I would return in just a few months, and then a week after, and a few months later. It would feel like I am forever home, only with short intermissions where he gets to enjoy all the things that the island could offer with the others to hang off of his arm. He didn’t even indulge in that idea. He thought even an hour apart was too much.

I promised him it wasn’t abandonment, and swore to call him every night. I do. Sometimes I call him in the morning, and I almost always call him in the afternoon. I like to hear his voice. It sounds like home, it makes me feel warm. I forget about the redness of my nose and the tingling numbness in my fingers. He sounds like the waves crashing against the shore and the sound of wet spaghetti hitting the walls during dinners at midnight. He is laughter and the summer sun, the swells that ripple in mid July and the best seashells on the beach.

My knees bend beneath me, kneeling against the wet cement beneath me. I feel the wetness soaking through my jeans. It’s cold. Like it could be snow if it were a degree cooler. I kneel in the middle of the intersection, and I look up at the sky. It’s dark. I check my watch, it’s nearly morning again. The yellow light flickers against my skin, illuminating my face and leaving me in pitch black again. Everyone is sleeping in my college town. All is quiet.

My neck stretches out, upwards and I open my mouth. My tongue touches my chin, and I can taste the dirt in the droplets that swallow down my throat. My eyes are closed, because I have nothing to fear but loneliness itself, and whether my eyes are opened or closed, the feeling will still be there, and the fact will be too. I am alone, in this journey. I have nothing friends to lean on and no campfire to light. Nobody here knows about the existence of Kildare, of the marsh, and the restaurants that line the cut. They wouldn’t care, they don’t care about an environment they are not accustomed to. They only have so much space to consume what they need to know. To drink up their studies, they have no space for empty thoughts of a life they never lived.

I have my old phone in my pocket. The keypad is burned into the screen because it’s all I use it for now. My life revolves around nothing but the stress of failure and the relief of my best friend’s voice at the end of the day to ease my stress. The truth is, I understand the void in my passion now better than I did when it first appeared, the black hole that seemed to swallow up all my excitement for the new beginnings. I understand the bitter feelings I have for my new house, because I refuse to call this place home. Home is not a place you reside, though, familiarity breeds contempt, home is a connection to the people who reside in respect of you, who stand by you. So though the people I surround myself with here are perfectly friendly, they are not my friends, and they will never come close to the feeling of home I feel with them.

“Hello?” His voice is thick with sleep. He has that rasp men get early in the morning, a rich deepness I rarely hear anymore, but something I once bathed in with his arms wrapped around me through the night.

Theres a soft rhythmic ticking that comes with the flickers of light, and the soft patters of rain drenching the pavement create solemn acoustics around me.

“Hey, JJ.” It comes out in one breath. A sigh of relief that he even heard the buzzing of his phone in his usual dead-to-the-world like sleep cycle. My fingers slip on my phone case and I have to catch it, the rustling on my end of the line echoing back through the speaks to me. I can hear the playback of my breathing through a short delay that spans over a vast distance.

“Is everything alright? It’s…three in the morning. I don’t know a lot about time zones but, I think we’re both on the east coast.”

“No, it’s the same time zone, Jay.” My cheeks already hurt with how big my smile was. He just had that effect on me. His goofy, unknowing attitude always managed to make me laugh, especially because deep down I knew he was a lot smarter than he led on to be. When he let that mask slip to reveal his true self, it was always a wonder the ideas that spewed from his lips. He had one of the greatest minds I’d ever known, only to be undermined by the tragedy of his last name.

“Is it a crime to miss my best friend?” My eyes found a home on my wet knees, and my free hand began to play around in the water. Dragging my nail through the small puddle forming around my body.

“At this time? Yes.” He chuckled softly. “Somethings up, what are you speculating? Whats the word? Observations? Because I can’t help you with that.” He made himself clear, smiling through his sentences.

“What? No! Why would I call you of all people if I was Ob-ovulating?” I corrected myself with a laugh.

“Don’t knock it until you try it. I happen to be irresistible.” JJ defended himself with a teasing tone. Our conversation was light like it always was, even though my homesickness ran deep, and the sadness I felt was heavy, he made it feel like even the rain pouring down around the city I lived in was letting up.

“Lord knows John B’s walls are too thin for me to not have some kind of clue.” I snickered, pushing back the wet strands of hair that had fallen down upon my face.

Rain clung to me in every crevice, drenching me completely until I felt nothing but cold wash over me. It was a shower I didn’t need, one that did not cleanse me but instead poisoned me with the reminder that this was reality, I was miles away from the voice that was soothing my hearts ache momentarily. I would mull over it later.

“Nah, you got off on that shit.”

“Don’t be a pig, I’ll hang up.” I threatened half-heartedly. We both knew I never would. I could never cut the calls first, so the responsibility fell to JJ, who suffered the same inability to let go. Our calls usually stretched for hours, and the voicemails left in my inbox from the few times I would pass out with my cheek pressed firmly against some dusty book in the library took up all remaining storage in my phone. Right along side the folders of photos of us that collected by the thousands.

“So why’d you call?” He asked finally. I had no real answer. I used up all my excuses. Could he check for a sweater I left behind, the very same one I had on, or if he could just catch me up on what the others were up to. As if I didn’t call to hear all their stories daily, hourly if possible. What was I to tell him? What excuse could serve as something plausible without bearing a burden on his wide shoulders.

“You’re my best friend. I love you, I don’t need a reason.”

“You always have a reason.” He argued softly.

“Well, tonight I don’t.” I hummed. He hummed too, and silence filled the line.

The homely yellow flicked was accompanied by the blinding lights that came in pairs, growing brighter and wider with each passing second. Like a deer, I stood quickly, tall in my path but frozen in fear. I couldn’t meet the eyes of the man behind the wheel, recklessly racing across the intersection with no caution. Yellow meant slow, yet in the night, it only called for feet hitting the floor.

Puddles splashed violently, wheels screeching against the wet cement, leaving trails of where wet met soaked. I could see the distance between the wheels, I could lay my chest against the ground and measure it with my wingspan. The car swerved, laying down on the horn until the sound sputtered away into the distance, and nothing but the soft ticking of the lights and the sound of rain smacking the pavement filled the silence of the line again.

“Are you outside?” JJ asked finally. The sound of sheets crinkling and shuffling of legs against the mattress told me the loud alarm had stirred him from his relaxed state. I nodded at first, forgetting he couldn’t see me, and then I cleared my throat.

“I’m standing in an intersection.” I confessed quietly.

“Why?”

To clear my mind, to escape everything that was bothering me. To find peace with the silence, to try and find comfort in a home that wasn’t mine. There were a lot of minor reasons. The smell of gasoline was high on the list. I rationalized a lot of reasons in my head. Maybe I was looking for that bitter smell to remind me of home. Still, my gut wouldn’t settle.

I had left home to find something good for myself, to do myself the favor I always promised myself I would if I ever had the chance. But now, now that my feet had carried me to a place that was usually bustling with life, life that felt dull compared to even the most calm days on the island, I felt like I could never go back. A chance, a life, a future that I craved, I was throwing away because my feet refused to lift from the ground until I was sure I would only take my next steps home.

“I miss you.”

My answer was clear. It was true. I missed the waves, I missed the concrete roads freshly paved down in figure eight and how they met the old dirt roads of the cut. I missed John B’s chicken coop, though the chickens were long gone. I missed the dying tree carved with his name, and the rusted latch on the chateau’s porch door that left a yellow stain in the crinkles of my palm. But more than anything, I missed being no more than a breath away from JJ Maybank.

“Come pick me up?” I asked with uncertainty. Not because I even doubted for a moment that JJ wouldn’t come running to me if I even for a moment doubted where I stood, but because the morning was still young and tropical paradise was far away from the whistling winds of the North. Ferries only ran during certain hours, and money was hard to come by, even when we scrape together our pennies. Thats what happens when you drink up your success, you’re left with the repercussions. So, even if he did catch the boat, where would he get a ride from? How much more would it cost to bring the Twinkie alongside hime and ride it all the way to the hills where the colleges welcome signs were illuminated by colored lights, shining in school colors and pride.

He let out a stifled breath. He was choking on emotion I couldn’t read over the phone.

“I’ll be there, yeah.” He promised.

“Okay…I’ll go pack.” I said, suddenly and awkwardly. Yes, I dreamed of this day, kissing everything goodbye and running back to my roots, but now it was real. I could hear JJ slipping on his boots already. Why waste this chance?

“Pack?” He questioned.

“I’m leaving for good, Jay. I know I tell you that this is great and all, but I hate it here. This isn’t…this isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s not what I want.”

“So, you’re coming home?” He asks even though my answer has always been obvious.

“Yes.”

The line falls quiet again. I can hear the shuffling of his feet quickening against the rotting wood floors of the old Maybank property. A broken home flipped into something good. We share a bed there, I imagine he’s already grieving the loss of his starfish sleep position now that he’ll be bound to the same mattress as me again.

“I’ll be there soon.” The line falls dead.

Water splashes around me. If I wasn’t already soaked, I would be now. I can see why John B loved having a car so much now. The cold was fine at first when it was numbing, but now that I had feeling back in my chest, it was too much for me. My feet hit the pavement in harsh slapping movements, I pump my arms for some kind of friction against the wind. My lungs burn, they taste metallic. I want to wheeze and stop running, but I don’t think I could if I tried. I should feel embarrassed how quickly I up and left the place I was once stuck in, how I turned on my heels to run far away. But I’m not. I feel nothing, actually. Nothing but cold, determination, excitement. I have the energy of a child. I am an olympic runner, I have the right motivation. Get the fuck out of here, run myself right into JJ’s arms. I pray I don’t wake my roommate up when I reach my room.

The room is empty when I get there. I open the door so slowly, not even the rusted hinges make a sound. The carpet groans under my weight, even on my highest tip-toes. But the beds are empty and neatly made like they were left this morning. Rains pelts the windows. Theres a fan running. It’s my fan. I can’t sleep in the heat, not even in the winter. My bedding consists of borrowed blankets that I buried myself in, subconsciously trying to suffocate away the homesick feelings.

I barely had any clothes to pack, anything to throw into my duffle bag and my old backpack that was once Kiara’s. I never really got around to unpacking anyway, because there was so little to fill the bags I brought. Looking back on every decision I made before even stepping foot on campus, I should have known I would never stay. This was merely a vacation from hell. I don’t get the privilege to relax, I am worked and forced to prove myself over and over again among my peers who will never know me. I can’t wait to go somewhere where I am known again.

Somewhere along the way, I begin to collect up the posters on my walls. I rip them down hazardously, crumpling them and leaving them in the empty trashcan. It’s empty because there’s nothing I’ve touched in this room. Not the books, or the pens. I have a singular pencil up on my desk that’s much shorter than it once was, only half of its once lengthy size, and a nearly full set of flashcards. I don’t need the memory of this place to follow me. I consider it a favor to my roommate. To gift her with all the supplies she will ever need. She is nice enough, and a lot smarter than me. She’s sitting here on a full ride, though, the collar of her shirt says she could afford it without a penny. I convince myself she deserves it even though I do not know her.

I check my phone repeatedly, and I sit on the bench under the old overhang by my dorms. I stay out of the rain, I stay near the warmth and huddle up. I feel anxious waiting for him. It’s only been a few hours. I swept over the room for the few things I did want to keep. Like one of JJ’s bracelets, though it never even left my wrist. Or the soap I used in the shower. It was brand new, I had just bought a new one. I wait for his call. I wait for the familiar honking of the rusted horn. I wait, and wait as the sun rises. Time ticks by. I am impatient, I wasn’t bred this way, but good things have made me this way. I cannot wait.

“Popes probably gonna kill me.” I mumbled softly.

The car was warm, but my hands still lingered with the outsides touch. I sat on that bench for hours waiting for him. I saw people rise from their beds and lean out the window, taking in the smell of the dewey morning. A few gave me puzzled glances. A drenched girl, dripping down on the bench, wetting everything she touched.

But then, he came. I could see the rusted van before he even put it in park. Just between the brick lined buildings and the paths decorated in dying shrubbery. There was a small gap between the campus lawn and the visitors parking lot. A small slice of the outside world creeping into the sheltered space that was college.

I ran. I ran faster than I ever had in my life. Faster than when I used to race for desert back when Big John used to ruffle my hair and let me sleep over if I wanted, faster than when Ward held a gun to my head and made me pray for some kind of miracle. I ran until my feet couldn’t keep up, and I fell into JJ with a gasp.

He held me back, lifting my feet from the ground they stood on. I swore I heard him mumble something sappy under his breath, but he quickly shrugged it away when he saw the look in my eyes. I never felt love until I felt the desperation in the way he wrapped his arms around me. The way he squeezed the air from my lungs and only let me breathe when he was sure that the feeling between his elbows and his chest was really real, until he knew that this was for good.

He had slung my bags into the back seat and laughed as he told me to get in the Twinkie. When he started driving, he played the old CD we burned together in middle school filled with soft rock and Bob Marley. Occasionally, a song I had written into the playlist without him knowing would play. He always acted angry that I’d done that, but his fingers tapped the wheel and he couldn’t help but hum along. He would never admit to liking trashy pop songs, but the pink on his cheeks gave him away.

When the CD was spun to an end, we debated playing it again. We fell into silence, into the comfort of company. We both took the time to process the fact that this was real now, this was the decision I had decided to make. The thoughts that ran through my mind, what if I took off? What if I packed my bags, what if we moved back home? Let’s adventure down the coast, let’s live our youthful dreams that are unrealistic. Let’s make a home. They were real now, in this car, in him. We sat comfortably knowing that there was no limit on our company now, no restrictions on how much time there was left to borrow.

My socks tapped against the dashboard, my toes tracing the outline of the stickers scattered along the interior. Wet residue was left over, soggy folds gathered at my ankles. My body folded into itself slightly. I let the warn air from the dusty vents dance across my skin. Goosebumps faded like the sinking feeling in my gut. The smell of gasoline filled my nose once more, the smell of his deodorant reminded me that he was close.

“No doubt about it. Don’t know how you’re gonna talk your way out of this one.” JJ sighed contently.

“Well, you’re pretty good at sweet talking.” I buttered him up. Compliments were his weakness, I knew it all too well.

“I love you, but no.” JJ laughed.

“What! Oh, come on, please!”

My hands wrapped around his right bicep. My chin sat perched on his shoulder, batting my eyelashes at him and tickling the peach fuzz on his jaw that he had missed while shaving. I wanted to rub my palm over it, tease him for it with a smile. He had a toothy grin that I could see reflecting back in the rearview mirror.

“I get shit done, but I’m not a miracle worker, ‘kay?” He lifted his arm out of my grasp reluctantly, waving his finger to make his point.

“I thought Papa J was a miracle worker?” I teased with a raised brow. My arms crossed over my chest with a huff. My back fell gently against door. I turned to face him, a pout on my face and lines between my furrowed brows.

JJ let out a breathy laugh, his resolve quickly breaking at my endless begging. He had soft spots and I knew just where to aim.

“No, no! Don’t use my ego against me!” He laughed. I held my stomach this time, trying to keep my ribs together while I struggled to contain the fits of giggles bubbling up my throat and fighting past my lips. If love was a sanctuary, I was certain I had both feet in it. If it was a fire, I was burning up, and if it was the waves, they had crashed down relentlessly against my shivering body, bringing relief with each blow.

I bit the inside of my cheek and chewed at the skin. Laughter faded into even breathing, and my limbs curled up against the wrinkling fabric of the passenger seat. It had just barely started to rain again, a soft pattern of droplets hitting the windshield every so often. The closer we got to the dock, the more it lightened up. Though, the storm came in waves in the shape of the clouds that covered the blue skies. With each opening with sun peaking through, the tapping on glass stopped. When the grey swallowed us whole, it resumed. I didn’t mind it again. Not for the reasons that I wallowed in just hours ago, not to seek comfort in my homesick nature that cane purely from the soul of a homebody. But this time, because the swelling my my heart made me want to pull over to the side of the highway and spin around until my half-dried socks were coated in mud and my skin didn’t recall what the dryness felt like.

“Can I tell you something?” I murmured, my eyes locked in to the passing view that was the trees speeding past the windows.

“Yeah.” JJ hummed.

“I only came back for you.”

JJ hesitated on what he thought he wanted to say. He was biting his tongue. I shook my head.

“That sounds bad.” I laughed. “I only decided to leave because of you. I guess…just sitting in the middle of the road, I already felt really far away from everyone. I missed everyone more than I’ve ever missed anything in my life, but I was convinced that maybe I could suffer through it. But…just being with my thoughts, and hearing your voice after thinking for a while…kinda just convinced me.”

JJ took it all in. I saw the whites of his knuckles deepen the harder he pressed his fingertips to the wheel, the vast expanse of road ahead daunting now. This was beyond quality time together, and he knew it now that the newness began to settle and he began to realize it was the same old me. This was my future, and I had tossed it all away.

“I just…I guess I always thought you’d be the one to make it out. To really go for it. Kildare’s big enough for me, but I always kinda thought you’d go somewhere…more.” JJ spoke softly, eyes glued to the road.

“Maybe I already did get out. I got out and I tried to change everything about me to be that girl who wanted to get out, but she’s dead. Getting out sounded so freeing when we were younger, but now…now that we’ve seen the world and…and done so much in such little time, I’ve already lived a whole life, I’ve seen the world and I still feel like I don’t know who I am yet. But I know what I love, and I know that I hate every second that I’m away from it.”

JJ hummed again, raising his brows.

“You don’t need to explore every single corner of the earth to be something or-or someone. And maybe I didn’t realize it when I sent my letter in but I know now and I know that, I feel only half as good when I’m anywhere but where I should be. I’m sorry if that’s disappointing or if Pope is going to lecture me for days and you have to listen to it, but I know I have such a better chance of being who I want to be where I can be her than in some Northern University where people wear coats year round.” I rambled. My hands moved quickly. I cut through the air with each slice of my palms, and my eyes ran wild across the landscapes and the curve of his nose down to the bend of his jawline.

“I’m just trying to make sure this is what you want.” He finally cracked a smile. His head turned for a moment to meet my eyes, and I could see the flickers of light brightening up his affectionate gaze.

“Jay, I sat in the pouring rain in the middle of the road and begged you to come get me.” I deadpanned, but a small smile still graced my face.

Truthfully, I couldn’t wait to stick my toes back in the warm sand back home. To look down at my boots and dance along the gravel roads instead of balancing between two yellow lines that shot straight down the neat pavement.

Home was a foreign concept for a long time. The idea that it was something that could be bought. Through a mortgage, monthly rent, out of pocket. I never had those kinds of expenses. What was pocket change for some felt like gold to me, so maybe when people sat around talking about how they craved a big house to reside in, I never fully understood. Then again, I was never anywhere long enough to know.

I wouldn’t change a thing, how I ran around with my friends for years looking for gold that seemed to become buried under more and more stories, leading us to an even greater prize. I wouldn’t change the way I threw it all away to be with them. Subconsciously, I was smarter than I thought. Pope talked about packing up his bags, skipping town and moving to Idaho. Somewhere where he meant nothing to nobody and could start over. But I never indulged in it, or the fantasies of having a little more money. Being stable out be nice, but I always knew I had what I needed. I had a home and it was built on the structure of my four best friends that soon grew in size to six, and they had toothy smiles and stupid jokes.

“Do you think they’ll be mad?” I asked suddenly. Sure, this was right and it was what was true, but this was a dream that nobody else ever got to experience.

JJ pulled his lip between his teeth.

“Nah.” He sighed. “Pope will have your head, but Pope gets wound up easily. Could use him as a fishing pole.” JJ joked. It made me laugh and I felt any stress melting away. It was funny that he could do that anytime he pleased. I didn’t know if he ever knew he could do it, but he had a smart mouth, and a funny bone that always seemed to tickle me just right.

“But not you?” I asked once again.

“Not me what?”

“You wouldn’t? Be disappointed in me, that is.” I clarified softly, the roads becoming softer the more me drove along them. It was only moments until we’d soon roll onto the metal bridge connecting us to the boat that would send us home.

JJ breathed out through his nose.

“Is this what you want?”

“Yes.” I responded plainly.

“And it makes you happy?”

“Yes.” JJ sighed, his eyes flickering from the wheel, to the road, and back to me. But only for a moment.

“Then no.” He answered just as plainly as I did, but there was a twinge of happiness itching at the corners of his lips. Selfishly, he wanted me to come home, and selfishly, I did too.

“Well, are you mad at me?” I continued to press him.

He laughed. “I could never be mad at you.”

“Not even if this is the wrong choice?” I picked at the skin by my fingers. My skin hurt a lot less now that it was shedding the smell of foreign land and letting the faint smell of the Twinkie stick.

“Who am I to tell you if it’s wrong?”

“Well, Pope would tell me it’s wrong.” I argued weakly.

“And am I Pope?”

I shook my head silently, and my eyes glued to my fingers. Blood stained my cuticles, where skin met nail. It stung, but it hurt a lot less than what I felt before.

“Y/n/n, you could send me into bankruptcy and act like we’re rich and I don’t think I’d even have it in me to blame you.” JJ smiled. I focused on the slopes and curls of his hair.

We sat in silence for a moment. It wasn’t like he was Shakespeare, but it wasn’t often JJ said something truly sappy. Usually, his philosophies revolved around excuses for his own stupid actions, which, now that he had explained his view on me, I had come to realize I never fully saw the extent of his behavior because I had never had the courage to blame him. I never would.

“So, you’ll talk me out of trouble when we get back?” I smiled sweetly, leaning my head on his shoulder and batting my eyelashes desperately.

JJ let out a laugh from deep in his stomach, his cheeks turning pink from his gasps of oxygen.

“I love you, but no.”

“I thought JJ was the reckless one, but holy shit, Y/n/n!” Pope ran a hand over his hat, pulling it off by the brim in one quick motion. The hard fabric hit the wooden counter of the bait and charter shop, the slap echoing through the homely space.

“Can you blame me? It’s so far away, and we just got back! I haven’t been in one place for more than a month in years, and I’m so god damn tired of feeling homesick all the time!” I tried to argue against the growing rally against me. I pleaded my case, but they all looked at me like I was brain dead.

“You had a chance, Y/n. A really good one too and you blew it, for what? To sell bait? To slum it in the cut? You can do that when you’re done earning your other options!” He scolded me like I was a kid. But I’m not a kid, and the worry lines slowly creeping up onto my once vibrant face are only evidence of the ever growing number attached to my bones.

“Yes, but a chance I didn’t ever really want! I mean, how could I even know if I ever wanted it, I don’t know who I am!”

“Thats what growing up is for! Not growing down. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not a kid anymore, Y/n. And you never will be again!”

Silence fell over the small room. Even the waves rolling against the dirt didn’t dare to whisper through the large windows and gaps for doors.

“I sacrificed that for you.” I spoke softly, bitterly. For so long, I’s bitten my tongue for everyone. Hidden my resentment for chasing after a gold, I never really wanted because in my eyes, I already had it. But it was what they wanted, so I let myself age out of the period of my life I had dreamed of since I was a kid.

“I gave up my childhood so that you could figure out yours! You got to know who you are, I never got that because no one ever stopped to ask me what I wanted! Nobody! You were all too caught up in your greedy treasure hunt to ever look around and think about if everyone wanted to do this!”

“No one made you come along.” Kiara stepped forward, the same disapproving look in her eyes. She was only defending her wordless friend, but my feet felt heavy and my joints were warm. I felt myself creating sentences I should have never admitted out loud.

“Well I did! I did, and it’s too late to change that, and I did it because that’s what friends do. But what do we have to show for it? Nothing! We didn’t get the cross, we didn’t get the gold, hell, we already spent all of the nuggets John B managed to grab!” It fell silent again, and suddenly, I was standing in the center of a circle I didn’t want to be a part of.

“So what? Because we failed, it condemns you to leave college?” Kiara always had a smarter mouth than me. She was quick witted and observant. Yet, she failed to understand that my choice to come home wasn’t something merely because of the way the treasures slipped through our fingers. It was a homesickness she never had to feel because she had plenty of homes where she was consistently welcomed.

“Why is it so wrong for me to be unhappy with something that everyone else enjoys? Just because my dreams do not inspire yours does not make them any less important. A-and honestly I’m sick of standing here and listening to all of you yell at me for getting out of there instead of letting myself waste away! I’d be dead if I didn’t leave, I’d be dead because you all mean a lot too much to me for me to be away from you guys for so long. In four years I might be rich, but I would be unhappy. I would be bored. But you guys—us; we will be interesting, and funny, and bold, and unpredictable forever.”

I swallowed hard, and my eyes met the blues of the boy who had the courage to go against the majorities better judgement and bring me home. He had the same wild look on his face.

I hadn’t expected JJ to speak for me, to try and mellow out the anger I knew I would receive and backtrack against the backlash I would surely face. But out of everyone, I thought I could count on him to have my back.

And he just, didn’t.

I decided then I wouldn’t stay in the eye of the hurricane when I knew what it was capable of. I wouldn’t let myself become part of its destruction if I knew I could separate myself from it for just a moment, to remove myself from all the disappointed stares.

My feet hit the wood of the long dock, the bottoms of my shoes echoing through each plank of wood, all borrowed from the destruction of a past home.

I thought of packing up, leaving, heading over to some other place I could call home temporarily, but my fingers hesitated to reach under the bed, and my knuckles curled away from the zipper that connected to the duffle bag that was squished between dirty clothes and shoe boxes filled with memories.

A hand spun me around, pulling me from the daze I had put myself in the second I walked into the new bedroom that was mine to keep in the newly fixed home. It was calloused and warm, yet the coolness of the rings decorated on each finger revealed who the strong hold belonged to.

“Why couldn’t you say something?” I asked bitterly before my eyes even met his. It was just JJ and I in the confinement of our bedroom. The door shut without a crack and the windows sealed off from the outside.

“I told you I wouldn’t.” He smiled. I didn’t find it funny.

“No, but you could have defended me. I would have done it for you.” My lip wobbled. My throat stung, and JJ’s eyes softened. He must have believed it was because he hurt me, but it wasn’t his fault. It was just the idea that nobody would ever deal with what I felt because they hadn’t been burdened with the feeling of it ever before. And therefore, nobody would ever get it, nor have an inkling of an understanding of why I had to come home.

“Y/n/n, come on. It’ll blow over. They’ll be happy to have you back as soon as they get over it.” He tried to comfort me.

When his hands found my shoulders, it felt belittling, condescending, though I knew it wasn’t the case. I convinced myself it was because I was angry. Spiteful, maybe.

“No, JJ, stop. Stop touching me like you care, I can’t…I can’t stand it right now.” I stepped away, throwing his hands off of me like they were poison, or fire, or both.

“Everyone is looking at me like I’m a failure! Like…like I’m something to be embarrassed about. But who are they to say that I failed? Right? I spent my whole life, the years when I’m supposed to be finding myself licking the dirt off of other peoples shoes! And I took it and I didn’t complain because I thought that maybe my day would come, and it hasn’t! How is that fair? And to think I was stupid enough to think that something good would happen to me. But the truth is I hate being out of this stupid town, and this stupid town hates me. I-it’s like they’re all spitting on me and blaming it on the wind. And don’t look at me like I’m crazy because I love you too damn hard to be looked at like that by a boy I would give my whole life for!”

I breathed heavily through my teeth, and my chest raised with so much vigor in my voice, I shook the air with a desperate anger I had felt marinating for decades beneath my skin. Yet, the manhunting and the blaming had pushed it down, and the failure and the fear had only boiled it back up. But it was always there, simmering. JJ just laughed.

“I’m only looking at you like you’re crazy because I think you’re too good to care what anyone has to say about you.” He explained with a smile.

“To you, maybe. But that doesn’t make it true. Whats true is that they all had some image of me painted for them the second I made the decision to go to college, and it was wrong. Because I’m not nearly smart enough to be as interesting or independent as they want me to be. I can’t do organic chemistry, I’ve never passed a calculus test, I’m not a doctor. Nobody ever supported those dreams anyways, not even me, because as amazing as it would be to become those versions of myself, it’s not me.” My face crumpled in defeat finally.

“I’m not…good enough for anything outside of this town.”

For the first time in my life, I saw something in JJ’s eyes as I confessed how I saw myself, how I let my friends—no, my families anger affect how I saw my decisions. I saw dapples of disappointment flickering in the sea of his eyes.

“Do you really think thats true?” He asked calmly, softly. He ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to reach out for me, but he too shared that feeling of uncertainty that had consumed me in the past months.

“Good god, maybe they were right. Maybe you are a failure.” JJ sighed, and my breathing halted. “How can you for one second believe that anything they have to say is true? How can you believe that these things you think about yourself are true?”

“Well what am I supposed to believe? We were all raised to believe the same things, right? The engineers and the scientists are necessary but nobody needs the family man or-or the artists to carry on, right? So why should my dreams of just simple living be tolerated when everyone else craves so much more?” I cried.

“Do you even hear yourself? It’s contradictory in every sentence!” JJ yelled furiously back at me. But his anger wasn’t placed at me, but at the things that led me to believe what I thought.

“Just a few hours ago you were excited to come home. You were certain that this is what you wanted because it was your dream and your life! You wanted to find yourself, to know who you are. And you were right! More dead on than anyone had ever been in my life, and hearing you speak about what you knew inspired me to think more for myself than for the benefit of everyone else! College, or some fancy job, or money won’t make any of us know who we are, that’s your job!” JJ’s eyes were wide. He had decided now, and his hands found a home on my arms, squeezing hard and passionately.

“Anyone can be those things they want you to be, but I promise you, if you stick with what you know you want, everyone you touch will remember you for centuries.” He promised me softly.

“And how do I know if I even know myself? What if I’ve never been home enough long enough to know?”

“Then you’ll find it. You’ll find it, and I’ll find it too. We can find it together.”

My eyes searched his. I could no longer blink away my tears. The liquid was much warmer than the rain that had pelted against my skin, that had slipped down my back and under my shirt to touch the most painful and terrifying parts of myself that I had refused to acknowledge or recover for some time. It was hard to recognize it all, to know exactly who I wanted to be, so, I did what I did know.

I wrapped my arms around JJ tightly, burying my head in the wrinkles of his shirt and let the patterns his arms rubbed circles in my back guide the way I swayed. I let him hold me, because if anything could be uncertain then he was nothing. He was the one thing I’d always known, and maybe that was why I had called him that night. Because in every memory I ever had, he was the one defining memory of home. He was home.

“Will you be mad at me if I never find it?” I asked pathetically against his chest.

“No.” He responded softly, muffled by the way his lips pressed into the top of my head affectionately.

“I could never be mad at you.”

[grapejuicestyless]

Seven(ways to Neverland)

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: “And I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad, and that must be why.” Y/n and JJ grew up together, and while it was inevitable, Y/n and JJ swore they’d never grow up. Not even when life told them it wasn’t possible to be young forever.

“My Ma is always saying dad left because he was a piece of work.” The girl said softly into the cold silence. Waves lapped at the shore calmly, and wind blew through her wild hair. She twisted the loose ring on her middle finger, a hollowed out and ground down acorn that was more brown than green nowadays. She spun the slightly wet ring around on her skin. “But I don’t believe her.”

The girl tucked her chin into her knees, curling up like a turtle in a shell. Her eyes glistened in the pale moonlight.

“Why?” The tow head blonde boy asked, curiosity in his defeated gaze.

“She drinks a lot.” The girl shrugged like it was normal. “She always did, but more now that dad is gone. Her friends do too. They talk about how their ‘glory days’ are behind them…or something like that.” She overshared her mother’s secrets, her young mind not comprehending the idea of dirty laundry and why you don’t air it out.

“Oh.” The boy looked down at the sand. “My dad drinks too.” He looked to the girl, who was now drawing circles in the sand mindlessly.

“Maybe it’s a grown up thing, and we don’t understand it yet.” She said hopefully, but her voice was low and quiet, and she looked awfully sad when saying it.

“Maybe.” The boy responded just as quietly.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if my mom married your dad?” The girl suddenly questioned. “Then maybe they wouldn’t drink as much. They wouldn’t need to, and my Ma’s friends wouldn’t have to sleepover in my bed.”

The boy nodded slowly, considering the idea before tossing it out the window.

“You wouldn’t want my dad to marry your mom.”

Silence filled the beach again, and the boy took some sand in his hand and watched it drain out slowly back onto the ground.

“He’s always angry. Sometimes he’s not, but it feels like he is.” It was the girls turn to look down and try to find some words of sympathy.

“Yeah. Parents suck.” The girl smiled, knowing the feeling of helplessness all too well.

They were only seven, but they knew a whole lot about things they shouldn’t, and they understood that just because the world worked that way for them, that didn’t mean it worked the same for everyone.

“Does he hit?” The girl asked curiously, her smile fading. The conversation seemed so casual, calm. Little children who should have been cowering, already accustomed to the treatment.

“Sometimes.” The boy answered truthfully, and the girl nodded.

“So does my mom.” The girl said quietly, still doodling in the sand beside her feet.

“Do you hate her?” The blonde boy asked after a beat passed, looking to see what the girl would say.

She thought about it for a moment, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and twisting and pushing against the acorn on her finger.

She shook her head.

“No.”

That was her answer. Plain and simple like there was no other reason for it. She was her mother after all, and she was a kid. She would cling to her and try her best to be great for her, and when her mom would hit, she would try even harder to be great because even if her mom was a bad person, she was a bad person that the girl wanted to love her so badly.

The innocent and the good look up to the horrible and the ugly.

“Would you run away?” The boy pressed further, maybe because he was curious of what the girl would say, but maybe also because he was curious if anyone else shared the same thoughts.

“Would you come with me?” She asked.

“Why?” The boy questioned with his brow raised, his head cocked to the side.

“I don’t like being alone. I don’t like the dark.” She hugged her knees even tighter.

As the wind blew warm salty air onto the shore, waves crashed more violently against the sand, the tide rolling in quickly.

“You’d hate my house then.” The boy joked with a chuckle. It sounded almost bitter. “Dark, quiet, scary.”

“Sounds haunted.” The girl looked back into the boys blue eyes.

“Maybe. But ghosts aren’t real.” The boy shut down the girls observation quickly, picking at the loose threads at the ends of his board shorts.

The girl hummed and silence fell over the two kids again. Messy blonde hair and two tangles braids with dead ends fraying in the wind. A faded pink shirt with cursive writing and a dusty white tank top. They were so young.

“Well, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad, and that must be why.” She spoke up suddenly, kicking the sand and standing up.

“My dad isn’t afraid of any ghosts.” The boy stood up quickly, looking straight back at the girl. They were at the age where he could still stand eye level with her, but he figured in a few years he’d have a few inches on her.

“But he must be afraid of you.” The girl reasoned.

“My dad isn’t afraid of any seven year olds either.” The boy argued a little more firmly, feeling protective of his father, or his lack of, despite all the cruelty he was shown from such a young age.

“Well then, why does he hit you? He has to be afraid of something if he’s hitting you. My mom says it’s because I look so much like my dad. Like I could be the ghost of him and she hates it.”

The boy fell quiet, which was unusual. Everything about the way he acted around her was odd. He wasn’t a quiet boy, wasn’t one to just sit and talk, he’d rather pace around and pick at his nails.

“I didn’t think of it like that.” The boy said softly, looking down at his dusty boots. “Maybe I look like my mom…” He agreed, but he didn’t really know what his mom looked like.

“Well, I bet she was really pretty.” The girl said, her eyes shining despite her lack of a smile. Like she was calm on the inside despite the outer furrowing of her brows.

“You think?” The boy asked, raising a brow and his head.

“I know.”

She was looking right at him, his blonde hair and his blue eyes. His skin was tan, soft looking. He had sun kissed freckles on his nose and pink lips. Anyone that pretty had to have a pretty mom, she thought. But they would never know.

The boy blushed, and he held out his dusty hand until she took it in a loose handshake.

“JJ. JJ Maybank.” He smiled, looking back into her eyes. He was only seven, and he wasn’t like his friend Pope. He wasn’t the kid who read in his free time or who practiced spelling on his weekends. He was out between the sand and the weeds, picking at the dirt and getting his knees muddy. But even he could see the wild look she had, untamed but gentle.

“Y/n. Y/n Y/l/n.” She smiled in return. She had a sweet smile, JJ thought. He’d never thought that before, or if he had he hadn’t thought about him thinking that. She had a really sweet smile. She was sweet. Blush from the wind on her cheeks and coloring the tip of her nose. A missing front tooth, which, by the cut in her bottom lip right where it should have been, JJ figured she’d knocked it out herself.

“Y/l/n.” JJ hummed, putting it to memory.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Y/n hummed, her hair pulled back into two uneven braids, the part in the back a mess. JJ had done them for her today.

“Shoot away.” He replied calmly, smiling and tugging at the end of one braid, watching the girl’s head tilt closer, her feet crossing in an unbalanced step. She slapped his bicep weakly.

“JJ!” She laughed through her annoyance. She could never really be annoyed with him, she believed. She hoped JJ didn’t know it because Y/n figured if he did, he’d push through every fragment of tranquility they shared. He’d find a way to bring her right to the brink of frustration and then make her laugh it all off over and over again.

“What does JJ even stand for anyway.” Y/n huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, wrinkling her waffled shirt. “Probably something stupid.” She smirked, unraveling her hands to tuck them into the pockets of her hand-me-down overalls.

JJ punched her, his lips drawn in a thin line. Y/n rubbed her arm quickly to soothe the sting, her brows kissing at the center of her forehead. “Ow!” She yelped.

That was the thing with growing up, some get stronger, and others get left behind. Not to say Y/n was weak, the bruises on JJ’s arms from her little shoves and playful punches were proof enough, but they were nearly twelve now, and JJ figured he could probably bench her by this point.

“You started it!” He argued, though his palm still smoothed over where he hit her maybe just a but too hard. He’d check to make sure he didn’t leave a mark later.

“Did not!” They fought like children, and smiled freely like they did when they were seven, like they didn’t have all the reason to frown, to cry. To let genetics be hereditary and become the punishers. But instead they swung weakly at each other and laughed everything off until nothing really mattered anymore.

A silence fell between their giggles, a silence only broken my JJ’s pointer finger and thumb playing with the little tail tied off at the end of the braid.

“I don’t know. I never asked, I figured it was just my name. JJ.” He shrugged. “Simple. Like me.”

Y/n nearly snorted.

“You might be a simple boy, JJ, but you are not simple.” She smiled, eyes flickering down to her muddy shoes, bright red converse with holes in the sides so wide, ants found refuge in the warm shelter.

“John?” Y/n threw out an idea. JJ shook his head.

“Nah, we already got a John.” He pointed out, stuffing his own hands into his pockets.

“Well, your dad didn’t know that at the time.” She argued, and still, JJ couldn’t get on board.

“Okay.” Y/n thought, humming and biting her bottom lip, sucking it between her teeth, and swiping her tongue over the faded scar where, she had in fact, lost her front tooth all those years ago. An adult tooth had grown in since, but the scar, now pink instead of bloody, lingered like a faded memory.

“Jackson?” She looked at him, and for a moment, he thought about it. Then, he hummed, pulling his own lip between his teeth.

“Nope, too fancy. Maybe if I was Kook royalty.” He joked.

“So maybe one day?” Y/n teased back, wiggling her brows. JJ gave her an amused look as if to say, yeah right.

They went back to listing names, stumbling down the list until random names became those that started with a J. She tried out George with a J, followed by Jerry, and Jeremy. But all fell flat. It seemed to look as though the boys name was nothing more than two letters squished together.

Then, with a click of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, and a sparkle in her eye, she looked up at the blonde with wonder, the start of an idea.

“Jesse James.” She spoke matter-of-factly, her hands cupping her hips confidently.

“Who now?” He raised a brow.

“The outlaw?” She said in return, like it was common knowledge. Like her and Pope didn’t stick their noses deep into western books all summer much to JJ’s dismay. Not that he hadn’t know she was a bookworm, as if she hadn’t lugged around whatever second hand book she could snatch without the librarian noticing, but the summertime was time for the water, the waves, the tide. Not dusty pages written in small cursive letters with stupid plots less lively than any adventure JJ could drag her on.

And, no, he wasn’t jealous. That’s not why he went on a long list of reasons why he didn’t recognize the name, how it evolved into a complaint of her time spent glued to Pope instead of him, because JJ was surely not jealous.

“He was an outlaw back in the 1800’s. He robbed, killed, fought. Ran a gang with other outlaws.” She explained with a plain expression.

“Oh, so an asshole?” JJ shorted, and the sound made Y/n laugh.

“No. Well—yes, but that’s not why I think it’s so fitting. It’s adventurous, fun. Risky, you know?” She gushed over old literature, and god, if it had been Pope or anyone else, JJ swore he would’ve rung their neck by now, or at the very least ran as far away as possible. But Y/n explained it with a giggle, and JJ simply couldn’t resist listening to each word pouring from her mouth.

“Anyway, I think it’s fitting on a surface level.” She shrugged finally, and then, her eyes flickered over to his. “But I think I like plain old JJ the best.” She smiled sweetly, and then, she licked her chapped lips.

JJ figured if she liked it, he liked it too. He never really longed to know what his name stood for, if it meant anything, but her questions always raised his own. He thought a bit more as they walked between the broken branches and thick grass. He felt bugs on his shins and sweat beading down the back of his neck. He adjusted the old, beat up hat that flattened out his messy blonde hair against his forehead.

“Well, what about you?” JJ finally questioned, itching to hear her philosophies some more.

“What about me?” She continued walking, the sound of running water nearby tumbling down smooth rocks.

“Well, if I’m some outlaw, what does that make you? The damsel?” He smirked, and Y/n couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

Could he really picture her in a corset? A layer over another until she was all fabric and barely any skin and bones. A big skirt hiding the frame of her hips and the sweet curls of her hair. She laughed at the image she painted for herself.

“If anything, you’d be the damsel.” She pointed her finger into his arm, looking up at the ground ahead now, and then let out a peaceful sigh.

“The accomplice.” She smiled, hooking her arm in mine. I let my hand slip out of my pocket so she could pull me closer. “But never the follower.” She raised her brows, a serious gleam in her lively eyes through her long lashes.

“Anyway, crime isn’t for me and it isn’t for you either, blondie. You’d end up in jail, and I’d have to bail you out. Hell, I’d probably be behind bars with you too.” She dreamed up the image, already seeing the way JJ would be leaned back, laughing at her stressed out expression. Cool and unbothered, the way he always seemed to be.

“And I don’t know about you, but I don’t just wanna be the kid from the cut who ended up as just another sheriffs little pet. I wanna be something. Someone.” She clenched her fist in determination.

“I wanna be that girl even in my eighties, dancing in the rain and running up and down the beach like my bones can’t flake away.” She smiled brightly. “And I want to scream, I want to yell! I’d scream ferociously, leaping between the waves like we do now, and I’d finally jump from the rocks, and I won’t be scared because I’ll have done it thousands of times.” She painted her future, her desire.

There was no money, no big house with a picket fence and an army of children. Just the ocean, some laughter, and enough fearless ambition to spill into the next lifetime.

“Sounds nice.” JJ agreed, but he didn’t have the same imagination as she did, he didn’t have it in him to dream a dream as pure and grand. So what, he wished for a little money, it didn’t make him any less noble. He didn’t need to live on figure eight, he just didn’t want to be stuck with three jobs until he turned to dirt.

“It will be. And you’ll know it because you’ll be there with me, and we’ll be the same pirates we are now. We’ll smoke on the roof and wear fancy clothing that we made ourselves. We’ll ride the waves and make lemonade and sweet tea like John B’s dad does. We’ll have mustaches from the sugar, and we’ll be young forever with the grass between our toes!”

She stopped, suddenly grabbing his shoulders at the opening of the thick greenery, the sandy beach an open land that laid out for miles around them. The waves hit the smooth rocks, the rougher ones that stood tall thrashing with the heavy water. Sea salt coated their glistening skin.

“We will be interesting forever.” She promised with a serious smile, like she knew there was no other fate for people like them. “And nobody will ever forget how we lived like real people should and how we never let the temptation of a corporate paycheck take away the big picture.”

Her hands wrinkled the shoulders of JJ’s old tank top, the sides cut so far down, it was nearly just a napkin with a hole for his head. Everything about their attire screamed kids from the cut, there was no fooling anyone, yet they carried themselves with pride, like the lack of civility in their lives was a thrill, the dirt and the worms and the bees and sweltering sunburns were all a gift to have been rubbed across them on their walks in the rain, in their summer time hikes to the secret beaches they weren’t supposed to venture on.

The Kooks had it good, an easy life, but Y/n declared that they were the only ones living.

“Well, we can start on that dream now.” JJ declared hopefully, looking out to where the waved lapped at the shore. His ringed fingers pointed out at the rigid rocks that overhung the deep waters.

“If we’ve got a thousand of leaps to take, you have to start with one.” He looked back at the girl, the way she nervously fidgeted before setting her hands stiffly by her sides.

“And then we won’t be scared.” She repeated to herself, but more to him.

“No, we won’t ever be scared again.” And there was a shared understanding, an understanding that dreams are just dreams until they make them more. If she could do this terrifying thing, all for the rest of her deepest wishes to come true, there was a new found certainty that anything scary could be done.

That she and JJ could do all the scary things the world could offer, even just as the awkward children they felt they had grown into. It was possible.

JJ sat in jail for the first time when he turned sixteen. He hated it. His head hung heavily in the palms of his hands, elbows pressed sharply against his thighs, eyes focused on the dirty floor between his old boots.

It wasn’t his fault—not fully at least. Yes, he agreed he had instigated Popes anger, but to JJ he saw everything they had done as self defense. Pope was a good kid, a smart kid, second in the class—no. First. He was first now. She was first, but now she wasn’t. Funny how things can change so quickly, rearrange to make it seem like nothing changed at all.

The point was, Pope had a future, and JJ sure as hell didn’t. Any dreams he had were replaced when she had shared hers, because he decided then that he wanted those things too. But that hope had long vanished, and now Pope had a real chance to chase his dreams, so JJ took the fall. He sunk to a new low just like the boat, sitting alone in the cell she had once warned him about. Only now, she wasn’t there to share it with him.

He thought about that day a lot. Just a year after they’d taken the leap, started the path to their future filled with laughter and whispered secrets, meticulously planned schemes and toothy grins. JJ woke up early, ready to sneak around the back of her house that sat beside John B’s and knock three times on her window. He’d beg her to go sneak away and let loose with him, and of course, she’d agree.

He biked the short distance, ignoring the storm clouds, ignoring all the signs that led straight to the forming pit in his stomach. The worry, the dread. He hadn’t felt it yet. He only felt the dust clouds kicked up by his feet and the rust scratching his shins from his old bike chain.

The police lined her driveway. Sheriff Peterkin stood with her hands in the loops of her belt. Men stood with their weapons drawn, her mother sat on the gravel, handcuffs binding her violent hands. She looked angry, but her eyes were dark with the evidence of liquor. She looked well-rounded from a far, but JJ knew the truth, and the dirt under her nails made his stomach flip.

In the line up of tin and metal, a van with a label he’d known so well from watching his old classmates getting whisked away. Child Protective Services.

“Y/n!” He’d nearly fallen to the ground at how fast he jumped from his bike, the petals grinding against the gravel. He ran the rest of the way, desperate to know what had happened. He had seen her yesterday, she was happy yesterday, what happened? Why were the authorities at her front door?

“Y/n/n! Where are you?” He reached the back window, only to find the emptiness of the bedroom through the cracks in the glass. It was messy, but untouched at the same time. Every single item thrown around left where it had been yesterday. Her pajamas she had laid out, still thrown over her flattened pillows. Untouched.

He hadn’t seen her leave, didn’t hear her cry. The van was empty, he’d caught a glimpse through the tinted windows. They hadn’t snatched her away yet, so where could she have gone?

“Come on!” He grunted, his palms pressing underneath the stubborn window, the wood groaning as the glass slide against itself. His thirteen year old arms bent under the weight, and he cursed his scrawny limbs. The glass only cracked more as it finally shot up enough for the blonde to wiggle himself into the room, soft thuds and gasps escaping his lips as skin pressed between wood and plastic.

“Y/n!” He pleaded more softly, weary of the fact that he was sure the entirety of the Kildare Police Department was lined up outside, and the breathlessness that came with the pressure on his lungs.

He earned no response, and in a desperate effort to trace some clues back to her, he began further ripping the room apart, spinning in circles for some sort of clue, evidence she still existed, that she wasn’t just some name in the wind, another urban legend spread around Kildare for the tourists to gawk at. Underneath her bed, behind the small table she’d made herself with rotting wood and hot glue, in the piles of clothes thrown around. He spun around and bent over until everything ached and he grew dizzy.

His eyes found the crooked clothing rack, a cheep bar of metal she had found with him in a ditch beside an old thrift store. She had painted it teal in the fifth grade and carved her initials into the posts. Her favorite pair of overalls hung limply from where they were draped over the bar, swaying in the wind with a crinkling sound in the front pocket laid flat out in the center of the chest, still covered in mud from their last adventure.

He investigated curiously, and in his best attempt to slow down in his desperate hurry, he pulled out a small slip of paper with his name scribbled on the front.

“Jesse James.” It read just beneath his real name, though it seemed now that she had become the true outlaw.

He opened it with shaking hands, his brows furrowing. When he saw the familiar scratchy handwriting, he internally let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, this wasn’t another one of her failed cursive lessons he always failed.

“JJ,” The note began, “The rich are the bane of my existence. I hope one day, when we are older, we are rich in all aspects of life but the literal sense. Maybe it’s just Kildare, but the more money that lines their pockets, the more cruel people seem to get. But we will be kind forever, and we will continue to swing from tree branches and work long and hard for the simple pleasures. I’ve been ratted out; or—my mom has. Ward Cameron passed by earlier to return a shirt I left at their house at the end of the year party. It was one of her bad nights, you know how she gets. Anyways, he must have heard her, seen it. I didn’t even get the chance to wipe my blood off of the window before the cops started pulling into the driveway. I’m running. I’m running far away into the trees where nobody without a heart will be able to trace me. I promise to come back. After all, what is an accomplice without her influence? But I cannot keep our dream safe in a faraway place where they want to take me. If you need me, picture me in the weeds and you’ll hear me in the folk songs at the Chateau. Until we dance again, Y/n/n.”

JJ stood there in the silence, the banging from outside the house leaking indoors, and soon, he had no choice but to slip out of the familiar sanctuary that was her bedroom, the paper hidden in his blistering palms, damp with the sweat the coated his now clammy skin.

They were thirteen then, freshly graduated from middle school and ready to take on high school. She had been leading the class in all ways, kindness, brains, bravery, and now, there was nothing left but the crumpled note JJ had thrown in the fire out of bitterness towards the Kooks and whispers about the girl who disappeared.

To Narnia, they said. The ball of sunshine and endless life had slipped away to a place where only the creative are let in. She would be a pirate there, she wouldn’t have to hide in the closet on beneath the sheets in fear. She was as free as the August breeze, and JJ was as lost as a drunken sailor.

JJ decided he didn’t want to be an outlaw anymore after his first time behind bars. It wasn’t as fun as she had pictured it. Maybe if the trouble was something interesting, a scheme they could have conjured up together, but it wasn’t a sadder reality. Pirates weren’t on peg legs with eye patches and parrots anymore, and the good and interesting were more boring as they tried to come up with philosophies that could never measure up to the youthful spirit she once had.

He wished for all the beautiful things he once had, and often he found himself wondering if they even still existed. His friends were his life, his soul. But he could still see her braids in woven patterns, hear her feet hitting the concrete and whipping in the tall grass in the breeze, and her laughter in those old cheesy folk songs John B’s dad used to play.

JJ found bliss in recklessness. Partially for himself, but also for her. He always believed in the idea that no matter how far he strayed away, pieces of him would always reflect his father whether he liked it or not. So, when presented with the possibility of a gold hunt that led him right into his jail cell, he took the chance, gambling away his safety for the thrill of the chase.

They had gotten so close too, the heavy metal sitting pretty and shiny in his hand. But he never won, no matter how hard he tried or how much he gambled and chanced and risked, he always came up short, the small half of a wishbone, the edge of the party crackers. He felt like an outlaw now, and it wasn’t nearly as fun as it should have been.

How they all ended up on some boat, JJ had no clue. Well, he had some hints, another forbidden treasure stolen just when he thought they finally won, and now, nothing but heavy breathing in a heated storage container that had no food, no water, nothing but pointless rope and endless trash.

The B team, is what he referred to himself as, which Kiara had taken offense to. Sure, it was low of him to refer to her like she was a worse option, but the blonde was itching for some action.

But he was benched. Benched because he was everything she loved. Reckless, unpredictable, free. He protected that sweet sliver of childhood beauty he found when he thought of her memory. Her sweet eyes, her sweet smile. He had never thought about anyone like that before, and not ever since. He hated braids, hated the way they reminded him of her, how Sarah and Kiara would slap his hands away and grumble about how childish he could be. She wouldn’t have gotten angry, she would have laughed. Or maybe she wouldn’t, he didn’t really know anymore and that killed him.

It killed him that he couldn’t know because he didn’t even know if she made it, if the trees were kind to her or if she had swung herself over the edge on a vine stretched too thin.

She would be eighteen now, just like him, though he was a little older. He wondered if she still wore the two loose braids down over her shoulders, taming her wild hair and tucking her curly strands behind her ears. Did she still swear by overalls? Dare to run barefoot over the hard cement and dive head first into thrashing water? Were there still beautiful things to her, or had life finally caught up to her?

JJ didn’t know her face, and he was sure if it weren’t for the hours he spent trying to find her, trying to trace her cheeks even in photographs, he wouldn’t recall it at all. She was five years older, and so was he. He wasn’t scrawny, he’d swore to get strong so that the day she would finally return, he could slam the windows open and keep her tucked safely behind him.

“What are you thinking about?” Kiara spoke up, legs swinging softly from where she sat on top of piles of plastic and wooden crates. JJ sat curled up in the corner, his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He’d never been so sweaty.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged plainly, focusing on the small circles on the floor made of rubber. They weren’t very comfortable.

“You gonna tell me, or should I guess?” She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears. He saw a flash of someone he once knew sometimes in her. Sometimes it was nice, other times it made him angry. It wasn’t Kiara’s fault though, not her fault she had spent so much time around the lively firecracker of a girl that she had also become another version of Y/n.

“I know I said a surf trip would be good. I mean it would, but do you ever think about what you might do with all that money?” JJ furrowed his brows, licking over his lip, the split in the corner of the bottom lip stinging at the sensation.

Kiara hummed, leaning back and stretching her neck to catch the passing breeze through the small opening in the top corner of the metal container covered by a vent.

“I mean, yeah. A stable home life would be nice. Then, I’d probably do something with turtles. It’s a lot of money so, could probably do a lot with it.” She reasoned, wiping her skin with her palms and blinking the salty liquid away from her eyes.

JJ hummed. She had it all figured out, her real, serious dream that had stability and certainty. All the things Y/n’s dream never had, the very dreams she made JJ want just as bad.

“You know what Y/n would do with all this money?” JJ snorted at his own thoughts, practically hearing her voice ringing through his head. He heard Kiara hum, waiting for him to continue, and he simply smiled wider. “Absolutely nothing.” He laughed to himself.

Kiara laughed too, knowing deep down he was right. Maybe a tree house, or a small plot of land on the outskirts of society where all good things green can grow and only the wild folk dare to stumble, but nothing more than that. A few thousand, if it even were to cost that much, and the rest pocketed, maybe donated. Maybe just enough left over to buy some new shoes, some good shoes for dancing.

“A lifetime supply of overalls and red converse. Maybe even some nicer scarves to tie in her hair.” Kiara entertained JJ’s thoughts. She still thought of the girl every so often too, they all did, but no one more than JJ. After all, nobody had known her nearly as closely as JJ had. A bond that only comes once every few lifetimes, that’s what they had, Kiara was sure.

“She’s probably outgrown the overalls.” JJ added, and silence fell over them. Then, in the still air that coated the small space in a thick layer, laughter bounced between the pair.

Such a funny thought, to think Y/n could ever change. She had been a lot of things, but she was always herself. She found what she loved, and she loved them dearly. There was no changing her free spirit and old habits, it was who she had grown to be, through and through.

“What do you think she looks like now?” Kiara wondered out loud, looking down at JJ to see the way his brows furrowed and he pulled at the corners of his lips.

JJ thought for some time, because though at first he had tried to piece together and image of Y/n all grown up in his head, he’d long given up on those fantasies because they were never her. Only bits and pieces of the girl he could never forget.

“Bangs.” JJ said suddenly, followed by nothing else. He could picture them, hair sun kissed and twisting up in wild curls that were swept to the side. Not full, choppy bangs, but those cut with rusty scissors in the early morning, just framing bits to tug out when she put her hair up.

“Bangs?” Kiara chuckled, her hands subconsciously slipping over her stomach, and her arms tucking into a firm grasp, a hug she was giving herself. “Nothing else?” She smiled, curious because she had thought about it a lot.

Her hair would no longer be in braids, and those sun kiss freckles would have multiplied like the sparkles in her eyes did. She would have an eyebrow slit, or a piercing, maybe even a stick and poke, all of which she would have done herself to make herself stand out. Maybe she would have finally grown out of her nail biting, but Kiara doubted that part.

“Nope.” JJ said wetly, leaning back further and letting out a deep sigh. “Just like she was, only taller and older.”

Part of JJ wondered if it was his heart forcing him to believe Y/n would never change, and then the other part of his would remind his aching heart that it didn’t matter, because he would never know. All he could do was do as she asked so nicely before she left, picture her in the trees, jumping wildly from stone to stone and dancing in the breeze.

“Do you think she made it?” Kiara wondered out loud, her temple now pressed against the metal confines of the container. The breeze soothed her burning skin, and her sweaty palms threaded through her tight waves.

“Y/n?” JJ asked like it was even a question. It wasn’t even a question to him, wasn’t even an occurring thought, not after the first time he really sat down and thought it over.

“She made it.” He said confidently, because he knew the girl, and even if she had lived in the mud amongst the bugs and the thick vines that attempted to grow over her tired body in the night, she would do it happily because she was living.

“Without a doubt?” Kiara shut her tired eyes, her chest deflating with every labored breath. Sweat glistened as it rolled down the slope of her nose, sparkling on the slivers of sunlight.

“Without a doubt.”

When she said she wanted to be a pirate, she had envisioned a life close to home, lounging around on John B’s old boat with her best friends, drinking from coconuts and ripping the skin off of mangoes with her teeth until the juice stained everything she touched. She imagined a life of pure peace, where the little things were enough and money was an afterthought.

But here she was, skin slick with sweat, hair stuck down to her forehead in damp curls, and her shirt clinging to the denim that covered her. The deck was cooler, a free space for her to stretch her eager legs, and though it was confined, she found peace in the open ocean, a vast space of blue expanding as far as her eyes could see.

Now, her back ached, her wrists just as damp as her face, and with each swipe of the backs of her hands against her temples, she simply spread the wetness across her forehead in a streaking mess.

She fed the flames, shoveling coal and other waste into the small opening, trying to fuel the large ship with what little energy she had left to offer.

Her back ached, and her knees were sore. She loved a challenge, yearned for the work because at least it gave her something to do, something to stick her needy palms into, but she was too worn thin to carry multiple jobs all at once. She desperately waited for the girl she had come to call her close friend to return, shovel in hand and thick gloves covering her relatively well-manicured hands. Cleo, she learned to call the girl over her few months spent on board, had abandoned ship, split when she needed her most. Nobody had said anything about her absence, so Y/n was led to believe she had left without warning.

It was hell below deck, a new low, and Y/n knew low. She could list a few things just from the past couple days if she wanted to scrape the surface, but most memories came from her earlier years, when college still seemed so far away, and she swore she would never grow old. She missed when her joints didn’t ache with even the smallest movements. She missed jumping from branch to branch and swinging herself into the depths of the ocean with reckless abandon.

More than that she missed him. Her best friend, and the only person who had ever believed her when she swore to live out her most childish fantasies. Anyone else always looked at her like she had dreamed of being a fairy, a mermaid, a princess. All things unrealistic and unreachable in her living situation and the rules of the world, yet JJ had always seen it as completely plausible.

If she said she wanted to jump to conquer a fear, there he was tugging her along and laughing the whole way down. If she wanted to dance, he would learn the steps, and fall into line with her, spinning and dipping her in the wet pavement that scraped against their bare feet.

So, as she shouted for some sort of assistance in the basement, she couldn’t help but wonder if she should have let them take her away that day. If she hadn’t been so set on remaining untouched, unfiltered, wild and free, if she had let the warmth of a calm, civilized home find her, would things have ended differently? Was it her mistake for chasing after a feeling of childish wonder that had been stripped of her? Was it wrong to want something so badly simply because her own life had been too hard to ever enjoy at a normal pace?

She hadn’t seen the thick greenery in years, the daffodils snd the daisies only vibrant sights when their stems were sliced and their leafs were wilting. She missed the mud between her toes, the summer air lifting her up. When she wore braids not because they kept her thick hair off of her neck, but because she liked the way they looked. When her overalls were a fashion statement, not because they shielded her from the dangers of her work. She missed the bright red fabric on her converse, and the old doodles from her friends on the soles when they got bored. They were caked in oil, and grime, and sludge. Dimmed by the struggles of her reality. She wondered internally if there were still beautiful things.

Then, like her prayer had been caught in the wind by her savior, there was some scrambling that echoed across the floorboards, followed by distant shouting and metal hitting metal.

Mumbling and chaos shook the frame where she stood, distant cries and grunts as bodies slammed together leaving her torn in a moment of desperation. Her heart ached to go, to run and finally catch her breath, to see what disaster had swept over the ship in such a short moment of time, but her brain thought logically, told her to feed the flames to keep everyone afloat. It was a split second decision, the divide between rational and reasonable.

And then she thought about all the good in the past few days. She thought of the glimpses of the world she’d stolen between the bustling mornings and the restless nights, of the small treats she stuffed in her pockets and the beautiful sunsets and clear constellations in the center of a world untouched by light pollution. She thought of Cleo, her only friend she’d found in a life where she only knew abandonment and fear. Where the only affection she had ever accepted had hurt her, and the only good and gentle people in her life had fled, Cleo had appeared like an angel, a thick accent and a toothy grin. Born and raised as a thief, and trained as a fighter. She was smart, and kind beneath her rough edges, and Y/n thought of the sadness in her eyes each time she worked until her bones stung. She thought of how badly she wanted to dive into the waves below them and pull the girl with her to show her how freeing running can be.

Faced with fear, she could not save either of them if she waited for another miracle, another moment to excuse her actions, to make her breaking loose seem justified if it were to all go wrong. If they’d have her head for betrayal, the ocean waited for her on all ends, and she believed in her ability to survive confidently enough to take the risk presented to her.

She took the stairs two at a time, and the door to the outside air swung open with such force, it echoed like a gunshot when metal connected with metal, bolts grinding together angrily, her soot covered hands staining the rusting exterior, the cheap white paint flaking off where her hand had pressed firmly against the door.

“Cleo!” She shouted in the wind, her arms covered in goosebumps as the slick sweat became a layer of gel that turned her warmth into an uncomfortable chill.

She looked frantically, turning corners and sprinting over ramps and down steep stairwells. She hopped over ropes and swung from bars, her dirty sneakers slapping against the floors in heavy steps, and her breathing coming out in short pants through her nose.

“John B!” A quiet shout rattled down the thin hall that lined the perimeter of the deck, bouncing off of the thick walls and hollow railings. It was a name she hadn’t heard in a while. For a moment, she thought she had imagined it, that in her moment of desperation to grasp onto the bits and pieces of bliss in her hellish life, her mind had reeled and found a temporary way to cope. But then it came again.

“Where is he? John B!” The voice called out again, whiny and pleading, and much too loud on a ship crawling with people who were indescribably more dangerous and destructive than the cruel people who lingered in her hometown.

Then came the struggle, more grunting, and the sound of shoes scraping against the floor in a slippery mess. She could hear faint taunts, familiar names of people she longed to see again ever since the day she had left, and the sounds of exasperation over the loud lapping of waves against the side of the ship.

“Kie, now!” She heard suddenly, a deafening shout that silenced all other chaos around her, her breathing slowing in her ears and her heartbeat pounding against her temples.

It was as if time slowed, and all things far away rushed at her in a blink of her eyes. It was slow, yet so fast, her vision blurring into a jumbled mess to the rhythm of her unsteady heartbeat drumming against her ribs, begging to get out.

It was a voice she prayed to hear again, only deeper and raspier, but still the same. A voice that called to her in her darkest moments and pulled her from her slumps, reminded her of all the beauty of instability, of pure trust in luck and intuition. A voice that she had grown to love and hold dear to her, one so precious she found herself covering her ears so that she would never forget the sweet sound of it.

“JJ?” She pivoted quickly, her hip slamming harshly into the metal railing and her shoulder making contact with the opposing wall as she used the accidental thrashing as momentum down the long, swaying strip of flooring she ran on.

She felt crazy, delusional chasing after a sound she wasn’t even entirely sure was real. She had been dehydrated, overworked, underpaid, forgotten about and thrown to the side amongst all the other treasures that laid untouched beneath the deck. She used to scream ferociously anytime she wanted, and now it felt more like her life had become an exhibit at the zoo, a cage for her bosses to look down on, tossing fish to keep her from starving. What had happened to her freedom, her love for recklessness? She decided to hold onto her delusion, to chase it because to be wrong was better than to be certain in her correctness and abandon her love for the chase.

“JJ? JJ!” She shouted, her voice coming out in broken cries, knuckles whitening with how hard they gripped anything with a corner or a curve. Anything that could keep her afloat as she dove into waters so deep, she couldn’t touch anymore.

“Cleo!” Her cries echoed through the tense air, carrying over the grunts and slamming and shouting that passed through coworkers, some she knew, and others she didn’t. If she couldn’t be given the life long dream to reunite with her drive, her motivation to keep going, she prayed to whoever was listening to her that at least her friend would be waiting for her at the end of the hall.

The boat rocked with a shift of weight, a crane groaning under the intense pressure of something indestructible, and in the glistening sunlight, Y/n caught sight of something truly magnificent. A golden cross shining in the halo of sunlight that surrounded it in all of its glory, a true treasure that had been, unbeknownst to her, been stuffed away just mere feet away from where she had been working until not a single inch of her body didn’t know pain.

She stumbled back at the sight, the jewels imbedded into the holy fortune sparkling with a beauty Y/n had never seen in person. It took her back to her days at Sunday school sat right beside JJ. Her mother wasn’t a religious woman, but JJ’s father was, and so with an excuse to be cut loose from the torture of her house—because she refused to call it a home; she too began to believe in something greater than what she was supposed to believe in.

For the first time in her life, her neck craned up to look at the artifact which swung ferociously in the wind, the groaning crane whipping it around erratically, Y/n closed her eyes, and she prayed.

She didn’t ache for the chase, for uncertainty in this moment. She was unchanging in all her beliefs, but for one singular second, she prayed and pleaded that for once, there would be certainty in who she would stumble across.

Then, with a sudden feeling of calamity in the midst of reigning chaos burning over the life she had grown accustomed to, Y/n rounded the corner, stepping down the last bit of the hall into the thicker opening of the side of the deck, lined with a few stray crates to block off broken pieces of the rusted railings.

And there it was, the sudden loss for breath, the heavy feeling that weighed down everything she could once do without even thinking. Her feet refused to move, and her nails dug into the ragged shorts of her overalls. The wind blew her curly, sweaty bangs across her face, tickling her nose. Her entire world shattered and then became rebuilt at the relieving sight.

It was a man she did not know, someone who had joined the expedition under the employment of someone Y/n wasn’t allowed to know. A man who simply worked for another man much wealthier than she was, erratically swinging his curved machete around in an act of violence against two people she recognized clear as day as if time had never passed them by.

Kiara sat bent over, the wind knocked out of her as her cheeks puffed up to try and keep what little air she had left inside of her. Her hair hung over her bright eyes, her pink lips bitten raw, Y/n could make out that detail even from a distance. But there, just s few feet away, stood JJ backed up against the railing, leaning dangerously close to the edge, his hair wild and untamed like the rest of his appearance.

He wasn’t the boy Y/n had left behind. He wasn’t the scrawny tow headed blonde who liked to tease and run, but rather a more muscular blonde with a fire in his eyes, passion that couldn’t be manufactured, but found through growing up. He was just as beautiful as she remembered, just as dear, just as lovable. Even without a single bit of insight on what he had been up to, how he could have changed, Y/n’s feelings for her best friend had been long cemented within her heart. She loved him like no other, to the moon and to Saturn.

She was only broken out of her lovesick visions by the sight of the unfamiliar man growing closer to her friends, his grip tightening around his weapon like a threat, and Y/n feared the worst.

“JJ!” Y/n found her tongue, which had previously gone numb at the sight in front of her. She had shouted out for the boy to warn him, to try and get him to recognize the mans posture, how he stalked over Kiara like a looming threat, but she was foolish to believe that the sight of her, even so many years later when she was sure he would have learned to forget her, wouldn’t stop him in his tracks.

His blue eyes found hers, and she could see how his body seemed to tense, and then very quickly, slump in shock. His jaw fell slack, eyes widening and brows furrowing, almost as if he was in pain, in some sort of conflict. To run into her arms, or to focus on why her shouting was so desperate, so raw and broken.

He wanted to speak, to beg her to tell him if this was all real, or if the heat from the container had caused some sort of heat stroke and he was hallucinating her up to comfort him in a time of crisis. But his breath refused to come out, and in a blur, the blunt end of a blade struck his head, and his feet swept over the edge of the boat, plummeting him into the depths of the sea below.

In that moment, Y/n realized three things. One; she had spent so much of her life dreaming, she had left so little time to go and live those dreams. Two; in every single thing she had ever wanted so badly it had become a part of her dreams, JJ had always been there right alongside her. In most, he even led her confidently, and three; that very same boy she had been dreaming of for endless nights, until her entire youth was filled with only dreams of him, had just gone overboard, and now, so was she.

Her dirty shoes scraped the edge of the railing. Part of her felt like spreading her arms out wide to welcome the wind, but as her wide eyes flickered from the golden hues of the sky to the deep blue that seemed miles away, fear struck her body.

It was a long drop. Much farther down than the rocks she had learned to leap from effortlessly, hand in and with her best friend to guide her. Water thrashed below her then, and it did so now too.

He floated below her, face down and limp and she felt her blood pumping. Back then, he had held her hand firmly and whispered out promises into her ear with each doubt she had. Back then, she believed every word he said when he promised there wasn’t a single possibility she would get hurt because he was right there. And when she leaped with him, he had been right.

“Wasn’t it fun?” He had laughed back then, so excited to have been right. Her face was unreadable, her lip trembling and eyes wide. For a moment, he had panicked, even at twelve years old he understood what it felt like to want to keep something so special safe. He held her face, cradled it in his wet palms until her cheeks lifted into a smile.

“Can we go again?” She had giggled, feeling a familiar warmth in the pit of her stomach spreading.

“Yeah. Yes!” He encouraged, proud of her bravery and her ability to find pleasure in things that once scared her.

He was always more brave than her in her eyes. She imagined if it were her down there, he would have already jumped in no hesitation.

Y/n looked down again, and then back at Kiara, who was back up on her feet, limbs tangled with the man she still didn’t know the name of. She was struggling to a degree, but quickly got some ground to push off of.

“Y/n!” Kiara called out from over the mans broad shoulder, eyes frantic and her skin dusty from the mans shirt and the wooden deck.

She could see her internal debate, both people who were so special to her put in situations where they were nearly helpless. To leave JJ meant he would be on his own, but to leave Kiara opened up so many more possibilities.

“Go! I’m okay!” Kiara promised as he pushed the man away, getting some leverage, and at the desperation in her voice, something inside clicked within Y/n.

The bottom of her worn out shoes scraped against the old metal, and for a moment the wind felt freeing as she leaped out, the warmth from the sun made it feel like flying, like by some miracle she could never fall. But the cool water below crushed her imagination as it wrapped around her body like a cold blanket.

When she surfaced, the world around her spun, echoes of her old pleas to go again ringing through her ears as her limbs cut through the waves desperately, goosebumps pebbling down her arms almost instantly.

“JJ!” She shouted, her voice raw and ripped from all the desperation she felt, how vulnerable and helpless she felt.

He laid on his stomach, submerged with no air like a starfish, only bobbing with the current. He seemed completely washed of all life.

She felt weak splashing over to him. She kicked and cut through the waves like she needed it to survive, and yet her malnourished bones only let her go so far so fast. It felt taunting to her, having to watch him get closer at a snails pace.

Y/n’s arms wrapped around him feebly, his larger body resting heavily on her shoulder. He was broader now, no longer the small boy she had to leave behind. If only he knew how quickly her dreams were crushed in order to survive, if only she’d been more careful, if she hadn’t left her shirt. If only she’d didn’t look like her father, if only her mother was a good woman.

“JJ hey, I’m back, wake up okay?” She smiled weakly, like her presence could shake him. He swallowed so much water, she knew it. If only she wasn’t so scared. If only she hadn’t been stripped of all the bravery she had learned from him.

The boy’s head rolled to the side with each tap of her wrinkled fingers, the cold biting their limbs with each lap of the waves crashing into them.

“JJ, come on wake up please!” She grew frantic as the water seemed to only grow rougher, a vision of the thrashing water between the jagged rocks clouding her reality and his weight sinking them down below the surface.

“JJ!” She cried out, her voice ripping through the heavy pants and her nails digging into his body. Blood stained his hairline, his blonde hair now darkened from the water and strawberry at the roots from his wound.

She knew it better than she ever had. He had grown stronger while she had been whittled down into only a shell of who she had once been. He was taller, faster, braver than she ever was, and as hard as she kicked her legs and splashed around, it felt like more and more waves seemed to pull them under momentarily.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She apologized towards the sky, guilty for not being able to keep them afloat in the choppy waters. “I’m sorry, I love you.” She promised, and she held onto him tighter with each passing second, even as her vision started to blur.

After all, he always loved the company and she was afraid of loneliness and the dark.

“I love you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m trying J, I really am!” She promised through gasps of air, water falling from her lips more rapidly now.

“John B!” She screamed, her voice piercing through the empty space. “Pope!” She called out again, hoping that just one of her friends might hear her. Would they recognize her voice, she wondered, or had growing up changed everything about her? Had she become unrecognizable?

She surely didn’t recognize herself anymore. She avoided mirrors, and parties, and small talk often. She hated the sound of her voice and how it had changed and how she’d grown taller and how her freckles seemed to dot her face more messily. How she had to live with the changes that would make her harder to recognize if she would ever get to meet her friends again.

“JJ, please wake up.” She pleaded again, all other sounds beyond her heavy breathing and the faint ringing in her ears falling deaf.

She recalled the last time she heard him laugh. She heard it in her sleep, covered her ears to drown out anyone else’s late at night to savor the sound. She recalled running her fingers through his hair under the stars, promising him one day everything would be okay. It would be okay, right? One day it would be okay?

“Kiara!” Her throat felt raw now, the salt water tearing apart her dry lips and stinging the scrapes on her palms and knees. Everything hurt, the more and more she begged and cried for help, the longer time seemed to stretch. The heavier he grew in her arms.

There was nothing she could do to change what was happening to them, no plywood or branch to grab onto, no ladder or savior to come and save them. Her heart felt empty, her chest closing in. If she had a mirror, she would’ve seen the loss of color fading from her skin. She missed the certainty she once hated. She missed everything about knowing what tomorrow brought, when she knew JJ would still be tapping at her window, when he wasn’t lying limp in her arms.

She hated it and cried about it, though it was pointless. She cried out for help but her voice was muted with bubbling water, her head bobbing below the surface. For a moment, her vision cleared as the waves dipped, and she swore she saw the outline of a figure in the distance, but she couldn’t be sure. The waters rose just as quickly as they fell, and with a deadly grip, her arms wrapped around JJ to ensure not even the strongest currents could pull them apart as her body gave out. And in a sudden moment of weakness and a final soft apology and a kiss to the blondes cheek, the feeling of sinking was a gift.

Then, the tugging. It was desperate, nails drawing blood by her neck, three or four pairs of hands pressing their palms deep into her raw skin, fingers all wrapping around her before the depths could take her. She felt the rough material before she saw it, the dark grey fabric lining the outside of the small boat, a large motor in the back and each empty space filled with a familiar face, all of their legs bent upwards in an impossibly uncomfortable position to save space.

Her breaths came out ragged, heavy dry heaves leaving drops of water heavy with saliva stringing from her mouth. Blood trickled down the bridge of her nose, a new, burning scratch earned in the messy tug-o-war to save her from sinking.

Y/n swore she felt her heart stop with each cough, eyes squeezed shut and her back hunched over in pain. Her palms pressed into the bottom of the boat until her body found the floor, and her knees slide beneath her.

Still, she recognized two things; one, the air sent pins and needles down every bump that had spread over her skin, her joints screaming with each small bend; and two, JJ was laying lifeless just a few inches away.

His head was propped up against the side of the boat, the fabric wrapped around what Y/n assumed was an inflated portion of the body. His face was tiled away from her, having lolled to the side as the boy Y/n recognized as John B through her blurry vision frantically steered the boat.

The blood had stopped trickling down JJ’s forehead, but the sight of his breathing so shallow and uneven, as if he was fighting each time to get another chance to breathe, sent an uneasy feeling through Y/n’s body, and panic shot straight into her brain.

“JJ!” Her voice came out rough, stripped from all her panic alongside the copious amounts of water that nearly filled her lungs. But despite her obvious aching and tender pain, her hands grasped the boy with a new found determination, her knuckles shaking with the intensity of her grip on his skin.

JJ’s head rested against the boat, but his back no longer pressed at an awkward angle between the elevated sides and the hollow floors, but rather laid tucked against Y/n’s lap, her left hand pulling him close, even as her arm shook with his weight mixed with her weakness all while her right ran affectionately through his wet hair, trying to rouse him from his unconscious state.

“No, no, no, no. Please, please I just got you back please.” She begged, her trembling hand connected against his cheek in quick, soft taps.

Her eyes filled with tears immediately at the horrific sight, her lip trembling all the way down through her chin. She breathed deeply, but choked it all the way down. She could barely swallow, her saliva and her pride stuck between her teeth. Guilt consumed her.

“JJ!” She shouted, nearly demanding that he wake up like a distraught child. Her voice was laced with a whiny tone, each plea falling from her mouth more broken than the previous.

Y/n’s hands connected with JJ’s chest, no longer providing that warm comfort that her delicate palms had as her fingers ran through his hair and cradled his wet face, but rather quick jabs at his firm body, just below his heart.

Her curtain-like bangs hung in curls over her face, dripping onto JJ’s chin and neck and reflecting small images of the girls distraught expression. With each shake, another droplet rolled off of his skin, and with each push she felt his back dig into her knee.

Y/n felt hands on her back, soft, smaller hands gently pressed against her shoulder blades, right between the crevice between the bones. The fingers were adorned with rings, the delicate hands rubbing soothing circles as her back shook with suppressed sobs.

“It’s all my fault.” Y/n’s voice broke, her lips trembling and her words nothing more than a shattered whisper. She stopped hitting the blonde boy, and instead covered her mouth to contain her cries of guilt, and grief. “If I had been braver I could have gotten to him sooner.” She tried to reason, needing something to blame to give her some form of organization, even if the blame was inflicted onto herself.

“Y/n.” The girl who kneeled closely murmured, her hand a point of stability as Y/n watched the sky fall. “It’s not your fault.” She tried to provide comfort, but her attempts fell short.

“But it is!” Y/n nearly snapped, but not out of anger, of something else.

Everyone was looking at her, she had caught it the second they had pulled her from the sea. She was a spectacle, a great vision of the past, a figure that had slipped from the lives they had grown attached to long ago. Someone they had all missed and grieved in their own time. And so they stared at her and drank up the changes they had missed.

She was pretty. Y/n was always pretty, but now she was especially pretty. She grown up to be taller than she was when she left, her hair curls twisting all the way down her back, the short hair now a distant memory, and her body curving in ways that gave proof of her aging. She was the more mature version of the firecracker that had been shot too close to the sun too soon. Their light that had burnt out prematurely.

And so they all looked at her, ogling like she was something out of a fantasy film instead of looking at him.

“No, no, no! You don’t get it!” She threw her arm up in frustration, tilting her head back to force the building bile in the back of her mouth to go down. Why couldn’t it just all go down? Push it down, that’s what she needed to do. Push it down. Forget it, and push it down. “I’ve ruined everything. A-and I’m no good and I’ve fucked it all up!” Y/n sobbed, her head hanging forward now, shoulder slumped and her hands now gripping the wet shirt that clung to JJ’s body so tightly, her knuckles turned white.

“I should’ve jumped, I should’ve jumped in but I was too scared and he was there, he was there and if he hadn’t and it had been me he would’ve. He would’ve jumped in because he’s not afraid of anything. He would’ve have held my hand and he would have told me it would all be okay because he’s braver than me and he’s a whole lot better than me.” She rambled, and the wording of her breathless explanation made little sense to those who crowded around her, those who hadn’t experienced the moments Y/n and JJ were free of civility.

“Y/n.” Pope, the smartest of them all, spoke up, his voice emerging from behind a blonde girl she recognized as Sarah Cameron even all these years later and the familiar, yet somehow, not comforting face of her newer companion, Cleo.

Y/n didn’t listen, she refused to, too overpowered by her self blame, pointing her fingers at herself before anyone else got the chance. Why wasn’t anyone else freaking out? Did the loss of their friend not rip them completely open like it had her? Or had her best friend she had kept as a fond memory, completely kind and loving grown bitter and cold over the years? Was he not the JJ she knew?

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” Her eye contact was fleeting, and in a final attempt to cling onto what she could before all was lost, her head fell to JJ’s chest, her forehead pressed against his shirt, listening to the fading beating of his heart.

Then, a cough, then another and another until a loud heave tore open JJ’s lips, a thick mixture of warm salt water and stringy spit drooling down his clammy skin, splatters of the mixture falling into Y/n’s salt-soaked hair.

She didn’t care, of course she wouldn’t, not even if it were blood and vomit, she swore she wouldn’t as she raised her head, her eyes flickering to where JJ’s brows furrowed, his shoulders drawing forward.

Y/n rested her hand in the dip on the center of his chest, applying soft pressure to ease his wheezing.

“JJ.” She breathed out, relieved and yet completely broken from the near loss, one she couldn’t handle again.

The thought alone shook her. He would never know how hard it was for her to leave, how badly she wished she had just hidden in the closet. But she knew her hiding could only do so much, the evil would find her and she had to go, she had to go to save them both.

"Yeah, yeah! Cough it out, cough it out baby!" John B encouraged, a sea of instructions following from the others in a desperate hurry, all reaching over to simply feel for a steady thumping of a pulse, all while the deafening ringing filled Y/n’s ears, her eyes stuck to the pretty sight of JJ’s face.

Y/n sat back on her heels, but her body fell forward in a deeper slump to protect the boy from the burning sun. She felt sick, and crazy, and confused. She wanted to throw up, scared of how fragile the boy might have become.

"Welcome to the land of the living, dude." Popes voice cut through the distant bells, the busy streets, all the background noise that flickered in short fragments through her head.

At her realization of his return, as it really sunk in, Y/n’s touch became a hovering sensation over his body, fingers shaking over his chest like she believed she had the power to only cause harm to what was already hurt, like she could fracture what had been a small crack.

Her chest felt like it was closing in, her ribs clenching around her heart tightly, and she wondered if it was what dying felt like, if JJ had felt something similar while each breath became less full.

Her mind spun like a broken clock, thoughts of self deprecation running in a constant loop, leading back to the same problems in similar processes with no end in sight. How beautiful was the feeling to be pulled from her spiral by the sight of his blue eyes focused on her face, tracing the curve of her nose down to the cupids bow on top of her lip.

She waited for him to speak, to say anything to her. Her heart pounded waiting to hear his voice, how lovely each syllable rolled off of his tongue. But the silence stretched on, just heavy breaths and tight grip that kept them connected.

His arm raised from where it lay limply by his side, his index and his thumb reaching by her arm to twirl the end of one of her braids between his fingers. In a swift motion, the pads of his fingers pinched the loose strands, and tugged for a short moment hard enough to tilt her head to the side.

She let out a soft gasp, only in reverse. All her air had deflated out of her chest, spreading a soothing sensation through her tightly wound bones just like the warm smile that expanded across her flushed cheeks.

Her laughter was a work of art, the most beautiful music JJ had ever heard, just as light and sweet as he remembered it. She hadn’t changed much, yet she had. She had more freckles now, and he found Kiara was right about the bangs. Yet her hair was still woven into the familiar pattern of two braids that now hung loosely at the bottom of her head, twisting and falling over her shoulders perfectly. She was taller, older, but he felt the shortness of her nails against his skin, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself knowing old habits die hard.

“There’s my favorite pirate.” JJ finally spoke, his voice gravely from the exhaustion that traveled through him, leaving his body heavy and soft in Y/n’s arms.

“Theres my favorite outlaw.” Y/n joked back, her voice just as soft as it was the first time he heard it that day on the beach. Just like it had been when he heard it even when she was gone, in the trees, and floating through the folk songs that spread throughout the old Chateau.

“Welcome back to the good life.” JJ laughed, and the sparkles in his eyes as he said it held every bit of truth within that statement.

It was a life that promised all she ever wanted to be. One where they could be interesting forever, where they would be kind forever.

This was the best life, the most freeing one she could ever dream of. It wasn’t about swinging from the vines or leaping from the ledges anymore, but rather the guiding hand on her back as she scraped her knees and chipped her baby teeth. It was always him, the influence to her accomplice.

She had promised to run freely with him again, to dance with him just like they used to and lucky enough, Y/n’s shoes were good for dancing.

“I claim thee, Poguelandia.” JJ’s foot propped up against the old tree that hung low over the sand. It’s tilted stump holding firm in the breeze, and its ancient branches shaking from the way John B’s hands gripped the leaves.

“Do we get a vote?” Sarah complained, rolling her eyes at the uncreative name JJ had thought of on the fly.

“Nope.” JJ smiled, pointing a finger at the blonde girl. “It’s already patented and pending.” JJ spoke confidently.

“Define that.” Pope sassed, crossing his arms and lying back against the old bark. Silence filled the sandy space, soft laughter echoing around the small circle everyone had created, sitting as comfortably as possible of the dying drift wood.

JJ shook off the comment, a smile forever present on his face despite the pounding headache and small bump forming on his temple.

“I like the ring of it.” JJ ignored Pope, pressing his palm against the large tree everyone gathered around and leaning into his hip until his shirt hung just above where Y/n’s body sat slumped in the sand.

She let out a soft laugh, if it could eve be considered that. More of a huff of air escaping her nose, a smile slowly spreading across her cheeks. Despite the quietness of her amusement, it seemed to only push JJ on, his eyes sparkling at the familiar sound he had gone without.

“I’m gonna make a flag. It’s gonna have a chicken on it. With a coconut bra smoking a ‘j’ in crocs.” He continued with his wild fantasy, watching how the girl beneath him hunched over with laughter and brought her hands to cover her toothy grin. “Y/n likes it.” He pointed out proudly.

“Yeah, I didn’t say that.” The girl quickly argued, tossing her head back and stretching her neck to catch his eyes. Though she tried to keep that same fight she once had with him, that natural bickering that made their relationship so beautifully complex, the reality that she finally had him again set in swiftly, and her serious expression failed to mask her excitement.

“Whatever, she totally does.” The boy swatted his hand, playfully pushing the girls head forward until she nearly bent in half. Just where they had left off, completely comfortable in each others touch and always ready to give back what they took.

“We were feeding a broken engine for hours, I think we’d both take anything over that.” Cleo pointed out, bumping her shoulder against the flustered girl beside her. Y/n couldn’t help but give Cleo a soft shove. An old habit she never really squashed.

“We? You bailed ship Cleo, don’t think I forgot.” Y/n said, pointing a finger at the sweaty girl who seemed uncomfortably close even with the endless amount of space around them. A whole island to themselves.

Then, with a careful glance to make sure JJ had leaned away from her, she stood up quickly, wiping sand off of the wet denim that clung to her skin, each cuffed leg weighing her down just a little more.

“Why don’t we leave the naming stuff to Kiara or Pope. Or you know…not you.” She twisted her braids between her hands, tugging the stretched bands out from the ends to free her now nearly dry hair from the patterns woven throughout. As she ran her knuckles through the tangles, her hands clasped around the legs of her overalls, her hands unrolling the pants until they sat just above her ankles.

“Where are you going?” JJ called out for her, not used to the proximity of her now that he had grown used to the distance. He chased after her as quickly as she began to walk away, chasing after the rush just the faint smell of her gave him.

“It’s gonna get dark soon, right? Can’t live off of salt water, J.” She teased, her feet leaving wet prints across the sand, kicking up the dirt in clumps that stuck to the backs of her heals.

He followed like a dog, practically weaving between her legs with his tail wagging in excitement, a familiar rush that was only brought out in the forever thrilling presence of her.

She took the pocket knife from the ripping pocket in the center of her chest, dark denim carrying puddles of the ocean in the stitching. With a bend of her knees, he watched as she dug the blade into the fabric that dripped around her feet, slicing the legs with a tearing sound just above her knee. With her other hand, she rolled the overalls higher, and stuck the closed knife back into its home. She left the cut pants in the sand where they had pooled by her ankles, walking by like it had been nothing. JJ figured she had done it before, probably when she was younger and on the run.

“I don’t remember you being so quick around a blade.” JJ teased, bumping his elbow against hers. He wanted to tug at her hair again, but his fingers curled around nothing by his sides as he decided on admiring the slope of her nose down to her pretty smile instead.

“Bull—shit, yes you do.” She laughed, turning to him with a sense of wonder in her curious gaze. “I used to cut you out of shit all the time!”

“Nah.” JJ played it off, but the blush on his cheeks betrayed him. “I let you. So we could play pirates and all that.” He lied through his teeth, recalling all the times he stumbled through the thick bushes just a little too carelessly and how Y/n’s rusting knife had cut his laces just a little shorter each time he lost a boot in the entanglement of twigs.

“Oh is that what we’re calling it now?” She bickered back, biting back a large smile in exchange for a playful grin. If she had access to the dusty space that she had once called home, she would have hung up the dusty laces that had been stored away in some box shoved beneath her bed.

“Yup.” He popped the p, licking over his dry lips with his tongue swiftly, tasting the salt on his skin.

A comfortable silence fell over the pair, her steps falling into line with his, and their hands shoved deeply into the depths of their pockets, fingers poking through the holes at the bottom from rough knuckles and heavy rocks.

With a heavy sigh, JJ tried to catch her eye, yet it remained trained on the sky like it was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen. He wondered silently if she’d seen the hues they once adored so much as kids recently, or if the thrilling life on deck had swept away her favorite thing, stargazing and watching the sky change as if she needed to put it to memory.

“So.” He finally broke the silence, her breathing hitching only to relax once her eyes found his, a gentle reassurance that everything would be as it once was, that the chase was finally over. “Was it as cool as it was promised?” He couldn’t help but ask, the same childlike wonder sparkling in his eyes.

“What?” Y/n let out a breathy laugh, wiping her hands on her tanned thighs.

“The pirate life. Where civility doesn’t exist and dreams can come true.” He clarified.

To anyone else, they might have believed it was condescending, a taunting question to shame her for her deathly grasp on all the childhood promises nobody ever kept for her. But to Y/n, she knew he really meant it when he asked, that he wanted to know if what they dreamed up was really as good as they pictured it on paper.

“It’s no Peter Pan story.” She breathed through her nose, eyes flickering down at the way her body was blossoming with bruises from her restless work, her dreams all crushed within the first week spent on the sea.

“I tried to make it Neverland, I really did. But you can’t change what happens to you, no matter how far you run. It’s like running in a circle. You go so far, yet nowhere at all.” Y/n knew she would never enjoy the pirate life she once dreamed of. In her dreams, JJ and her were co-captains, sailors with fancy white hats and no hooks for hands.

Now she felt like she should be fearing the ticking of the clocks, and running from the danger that once excited her.

“Did you believe it?” She couldn’t help but ask, wondering if her JJ had really waited to hear all the stories she promised to share with him, all the hustle and bustle of her fantasies.

JJ paused, then, looked at his sad friend’s face, and gave her a sympathetic nod. It wasn’t completely truthful, but that’s what happens naturally. He always believed in her and her curiosity towards the simple things in life. He believed that all the times he felt he had an ounce of childhood to hold onto were only beliefs because she had made them so. And when she had to go, so did the nice things he saw in nothing at all.

“I won’t confess that I believed it, that I didn’t have my doubts, but I always figured you’d be okay. That you’d find your way and maybe even come home.” What he didn’t say is all the times he’d left the lamp on, kept it burning on the porch so she’d know someone was home if she were to return.

He didn’t tell her that he had only gone on the wild gold hunt because part of him believed if he had the money to back it up, he could search every part of the earth to find her. Because it wouldn’t matter if he had or hadn’t told her, it wouldn’t make a difference and it wouldn’t change a thing.

They both made promises they couldn’t keep, and that was just the way life seemed to go. So she didn’t ask where he had been all these years, and he never asked about where she had gone. The timing would come to them eventually, and it would all work out. There was no point in catching up for two souls that had never been truly apart.

JJ and and Y/n had walked themselves to a ledge by the end of their conversation, nothing but soft breathing and the comfort of the wet, warm winds to wrap around them like a soothing blanket of serenity.

Y/n would be lying if she said the height didn’t scare her, if the wild waves below didn’t cause a crisp trepidation to shoot through her limbs. It was a big jump, the final leap she had always dreamed of.

The waves hit the smooth rocks, the rougher ones that stood tall thrashing with the heavy water. Sea salt coated their glistening skin, and as the wind blew through her hair, she came to a realization she had never considered before.

All this time she believed she had been something like Peter Pan. She joked about pirates, and running free, and all things children should know and love, and she acted fearlessly like she would forever be that version of herself. Yet, as time closed in on her and she grew taller, maturity had grown into her bones with each added inch. She was no Peter, she was more of a Wendy, and at first it had killed her, but only for a moment.

When she looked over to her side, she saw the blonde she had fallen in love with when she was still so little. They were young, and with their spirits, she was sure part of them would always be. And she knew then, if she was Wendy, he was her Peter.

“What?” JJ smiled, catching her glances. Standing proudly beside him, only older than the last time they’d met up. She had promised to grow up and come find him. She guessed she wasn’t lying about that.

"We will be interesting forever." She recited her promises from their youth, promises that were oceans deep with a serious smile, like she knew there was no other fate for people like them. "And nobody will ever forget how we lived like real people should and how we never let the temptation of a corporate paycheck take away the big picture."

Her hands reached up to hold JJ like she had when they stood only five feet tall. Now here he was, towering over her like he always promised he would. She wrinkled the shoulders of JJ's old tank top, the sides cut so far down, it was nearly just a napkin with a hole for his head. Everything about their attire screamed outlaws, pirates, lost boys, fighters, and believers. There was no fooling anyone, yet they carried themselves with pride, like the lack of civility in their lives was a thrill, the dirt and the worms and the bees and sweltering sunburns were all a gift to have been rubbed across them on their walks in the rain, in their summer time hikes to the secret beaches they weren't supposed to venture on.

The Kooks had it good, an easy life, but Y/n declared that they were the only ones living.

“Do you still dream the same dreams?” JJ asked softly, the wind blowing through his messy blonde hair, and the ocean rolling calmly below them now.

She nodded, letting her hands fall into his, and tugging at the loose threads that fell from his worn out friendship bracelets. Just fractions of the ones she had littering her own wrists.

"I still wanna be that girl in my eighties, dancing in the rain and running up and down the beach like my bones can't break away." She smiled, and he noticed how much more sincere it felt now. "And I want to scream, I want to yell. I'd scream ferociously, leaping between the waves like we did now, and I'd finally jump from the rocks, and I won't be scared because l'll have done it thousands of times." She painted her future, her desire with a loving glance into JJ’s blue eyes.

There was no money, no big house with a picket fence and an army of children. Just the ocean, some laughter, and enough fearless ambition to spill into the next lifetime.

"Sounds nice." JJ agreed, only now he had grown to have the same imagination as she did, he had it in him to dream a dream as pure and grand. He didn't need to live on figure eight, he didn't even mind being stuck with three jobs until he turned to dirt of it meant they would be dancing together forever.

"It will be. And you'll know it because you'll be there with me, and we'll be the same pirates we are now. We'll smoke on the roof and wear fancy clothing that we made ourselves. We'll ride the waves and make lemonade and sweet tea like John B's dad did when we were kids. We'll have mustaches from the sugar, and we'll be young forever with the grass between our toes.” She kept her word, because there it was, the same sparkle in her eyes. The same sweet, delicate wonder.

"Well,” JJ began, his eyes leading hers to where the grass overhung the large fall into the deep blue below. “we can start on that dream now." JJ declared hopefully, looking out to where the waved lapped at the shore. His ringed fingers pointed out at the rigid rocks that overhung the deep waters.

"If we've got a thousand of leaps to take, you have to start with one." He looked back at the girl, the way she didn’t seem to be nervously fidgeting like she had when he first promised everything would be okay.

"And then we won't be scared." She repeated to herself, but more to him, more for the memory of the first time she felt like flying.

"No, we won't ever be scared again." And there was a shared understanding, an understanding that dreams are just dreams until they make them more. If she could do this terrifying thing, all for the rest of her deepest wishes to come true, there was a new found certainty that anything scary could be done.

That she and JJ could do all the scary things the world could offer, even just as the awkward young adults they felt they had grown into. It was possible.

He took her hand more firmly in his, and counted down under his breath. There were hoots and hollers from the excited audience that had gathered below. Their friends filled with fear but also the fiercely spreading feeling of wonder and happiness that JJ and Y/n had found in one another.

With a deep breath, he led her off the edge, and in the moments that came before the cool water surrounded them, they swore they were flying. That they were living like nobody had ever lived before. They were seven again, then thirteen, and then back to where they found themselves now, flickering through the past as they came down.

It was only one of a thousand promised leaps, and Y/n didn’t feel any fear as the water poured into her ears.

Because when they surfaced, there he was, his hair wet and his smile wide. His hands clasped in hers, holding her arms over her head so high, her legs had to wrap around his waist.

“Again!” He shouted excitedly.

One promise kept, nine hundred ninety nine left to live.

[esposamultifandom]

Ok, I'm going to say it, I need a part 2 (and to be tagged in it) and therapy.

You just made me cry buckets, relive every moment being ignored and invisible, as the oldest daughter, firstborn and sister of a BOY, an athletic and intelligent one, That's all my sexist father ever wanted and I'll never be.

Dad never laid a hand on me, but he didn’t have to. He didn’t have to touch me to kick me in the stomach, all he had to do was show me how he was capable of being a loving father, but never put me on the receiving end.

This phrase will kill me, I'm going to tattoo it, thanks for your work of art

Leader Of The Landslide

JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summery: John B was always your dad’s favorite. You always assumed it was because he blamed your mother leaving on you. Though he never outwardly neglected you, you always seemed to live in your older brother’s shadow. To everyone except one.

I remembered it from a young age, as early as seven, the way they all shunned me. My mother had been long gone, and my tired brain hadn’t held a single warm memory of her other than one.

We were at the chateau, as my dad called it, sitting on the old porch. Only, it wasn’t old then, it was new, and without the cigarette buds littering the once vibrant oak. There was an old wicker chair in the corner, pushed where the dusty couch now lay. It rocked slightly, not because it was meant to, but because it was broken. The distant memory of mumbled yelling and crashing from outside. Arguments that kept me and John B hidden under his covers until daylight broke. I loved that chair.

When I was young, my mom used to hold me in that chair. She never thought I was too old to be held, to be doted on by my mother. I still called her “mama” in my toddler years, pawing at the ends of her hair and the old fabric of her shirt. She sang soft melodies to me, songs I had never committed to memory, but songs I found in the simple things I enjoy now.

Popes dad says I had her eyes, and John B once told me that our dad thought I had her laugh. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like me, he tells me he loves me, but he doesn’t like me.

Right before she left, I had been padding along the grain of the wood floors, my blanket dragging between my legs and my dad’s shirt were my makeshift pajamas hanging down to my ankles. A storm, ones we got often in the summertime as the air became warmer and pushed out the cold, had broken down a few large branches in the yard, and in an effort to find comfort, I ran to my mama.

“You favor that girl over our son!” My dad shouted, his voice thick with a simmering anger I had never heard before. I swore even then I could feel it through the walls.

“How dare you! They are my babies! I love those kids more than anything I have ever loved, and I love them just the same!” My mama argued, but her voice was softer, more conscious of her young ones who she believed were tucked into bed just a few feet away.

“I should have known you would have been this way. You haven’t seen them the same since they were born.” My mama added softly, her words bitter and heavy with an unspoken truth.

There was a heavy silence, and then, a crack. I wasn’t sure what it was, the sound of rings hitting skin and the soft clanking of another hitting the ground. I ran quietly, light on my feet as soon as the collision happened, crawling over to John B’s bed and pulling the sheets up to my chin. He didn’t even stir, so used to the feeling of my legs curling against his, expecting to wake up nose to nose when the sun would shine through his thin curtains. The arguments happened so often, it became rare that he wouldn’t wake up with me tucked into bed beside him, a nervous wreck and furrowed brows.

That was the last time I saw my mother, or heard her voice. I hadn’t known it then, but the way my father seemed distant that morning told me it was more than one of the usual fights. She wouldn’t be walking through that door again in a few days like she sometimes would, and she would never sing to me again.

I remember laying out across that old chair, pulling my small knees to my chest. Her perfume lingered on the cushion tied around the back, and her voice was carried over the breeze. She wasn’t coming back, and the pain in my father’s eyes and the churning of his stomach told me that much.

A few days later, dad called my brother and I into the living room to tell us how mama had skipped town, set off for a better life. I could tell they both blamed her, bother hated her secretly for it almost instantly, and being so young and impressionable, I nearly agreed, I nearly believed it. But I saw the way my father spoke to her and the way he had the ability to make her snap back. She deserved that life my father said she was chasing, even if deep down I knew it was a lie.

I never told my brother that dad was lying, though sometimes I did whisper it in his sleep like a prayer, like my truth would reach his dreams and taint his false sense into seeing whats real. But even as a little kid I wasn’t innocent enough to blabber on about how horrible our last living parent was. Especially not when our dad was to John B as what our mother was to me.

The chair was gone soon after, and my dad refused to tell me where he’d thrown it. At first I thought he had broken it, but he was a sensible man at times, and the extra cash lying around the kitchen told me he had sold it, and he had killed her memory too.

Years later, with barely any recollection of who she was, and lacking the foundations of which she should have built for me, sometimes I found myself curled up in that corner, my knees pulled to my chest tightly in the same ball I wound myself in all those years ago, and sometimes I found myself still calling out for her, like if she had heard how much I still needed her, she would sing for me one last time.

But I am much older now, and it has dawned on me repeatedly like some sick prayer that I am too old to be held, to be shown the affection of a mother and her infant, and I have been since the day she left.

Early mornings and stained glass windows, not from paints, but mold. Old rotten wood and dusty broken furniture. A safe haven to call home, a quiet room on the heart of the cut. My brother and I often pulled out patches of grass in the backyard, and sometimes we’d sit together on the hammock, see how high we could swing and loop our fingers around the rope to hold on.

Dad would sit inside, sometimes by the kitchen window where he could look out and watch over us, but he mainly spent his time inside of his office, which had at one point, been moms bedroom.

He used to leaning over the dirty counters, feeling the sun on his skin, letting the gentle breeze cool the back of his neck. But dad loved a lot of things, and unlike mom, he lacked a discreet touch about those things.

I guess it could be traced back to when my brother and I had just turned eight. A week after the party had rolled over, and glasses kept piling up around the house, sticky and stained a faint brown from his favorite cheap whiskey. Sometimes I tried to clean them up, and I would place them in the sink, but the colors never faded, not even after my small palms would bleed and callous.

Once, John B asked me what I was doing. He had been playing outside with Pope and JJ, and JJ had been screaming for me to come outside and be his partner in ‘signs’, our favorite childhood card game. Though, JJ and I often lost because we too, lacked the ability to be discreet in any situation.

I told him I’d be out soon, I was just doing the dishes and I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face. The usually happy, calm man looked down at his feet with something I’ve later identified embarrassment. I never blamed dad for drinking. I figured if mom leaving was still hard on me after all this time, it must have been hard for him too.

He began using his coffee mug after that. The dark liquid less shameful in a cup that gave him the ability to not only disguise his problem, but to commit it at any time of day, because John B was too oblivious to notice, and I was too naive to believe he would.

“Bird.” Dad called for John B in the backyard, not caring how Pope and I were arguing nonsensical things over each other, waving our arms and pointing fingers. JJ happily mediated, laughing at our schoolyard taunts and remarks, encouraging us to snap back, though we all knew our words were nothing more than that, and we all loved each other a great deal too much to mean any of it.

If I hadn’t been so caught up in my own thoughts, maybe I would’ve seen the way dad was swaying. The way his knuckles were white around the frame of the door. His glasses were crooked, and his breath rotten with substances. But I didn’t notice, and so little John B happily walked towards our father with open arms.

Dad hugged him. He hugged his son and held back his tears like it was the most beautiful moment he could ever dream of. He held John B like he was precious, and not to deny that he wasn’t, to me my brother was worth more than anything in the world, but to my dad, it was something more than that, and to me, it felt that way too.

Because dad never held me, his daughter, who cleaned his dishes, and covered his tracks, and lied, and stole, and cried out for him, for some peace. He never hugged me like that. Because he blamed me.

He blamed me for my mother leaving because unlike my mother, he could never love my brother and I the same. He couldn’t love two of something if he barely wanted one. He never hit me, but he was cold, calculated, cruel when he wanted to be.

That day, at just eight years old, I sat in the grass with dirt under my nails and heavy breaths wondering would it would be like to feel the warmth of my father. Would it solve all my problems or only tear me apart further.

Because maybe if I continued to never feel the embrace of the man who gave me life, it would be easier to disassociate and pretend that it didn’t hurt. Maybe it would be easier to not like him anymore, and the unbearable guilt I carried even as an eight year old, would go away finally.

I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t fighting Pope anymore, or how my gaze had drifted over to watch how tenderly my dad held onto my brother, because I couldn’t even feel the way tears burned into my skin in slow droplets that fell into my lap.

JJ hugged me then, and it felt special, I felt special, because I knew even at that age that affection was a rarity in my life, and JJ, as much as I knew he loved me, was not a physical person. Still, he held me from behind while Pope spewed out apologies, swearing on everything he believed that he hadn’t meant a word. I could tell that he too, felt confused because we had gone after each other multiple times and never had I broken down.

In that moment it felt like I had gained something more than a hug from my father, but a silent acceptance with my best friends. Because soon, even Pope shut up and looked to where JJ’s eyes were glued, and even as flustered as he had been, everyone who sat in the dirt that day understood that no words that were thrown around had ever hurt me, nor did they even reach me, because what had made me so inconsolable was the fact that my happy brother received all the praise while I laid out in the lawn, crying until I dry heaved, ignored by someone who I only ever wanted love from.

“It’s gonna be alright, Y/n/n.” JJ mumbled quietly into my ear, and for the first time, I didn’t believe a word he said.

“Dad, dad stop.” I defended myself for the first time when I was thirteen. I was only half his height and he was triple my age. I thought that somehow, if I stopped enabling his behavior, he would get better. He would see how much I cared and he would finally love me.

That was the first time dad yelled at me, really yelled at me.

My dad refused to lay a hand on me, so when my friends ask if I was ever abused, I tell them no because it feels laughable to compare my psychological trauma to the welts on their ribs when they barely escape home.

When JJ asks me whats wrong, why my eyes look so puffy in the afternoon, after I stumble out of the house in the same clothes as the night before, I tell him I didn’t get enough sleep, because how do you tell your best friend who has been climbing through my bedroom window since we were nine that my dad hurts me too, you just can’t see it.

Dad called me a liar and a psychopath when I told him he was hurting me. He told me that it wasn’t true because he loved my brother and I and he would never lay a hand on either of us, not then and not ever. Dad says that he deserves respect, that I’m only a kid and he’s the adult so I better start acting like it. He tells me that it’s like a switch went off in my head ever since I became a teenager and all of a sudden I can’t stand him. But that’s not true.

The truth was even at such a young age, I always knew I would lay my life on the line for my dad. He meant more to me than I could ever express, because to me, he was the man who hadn’t left, even when he was given all the right reasons to bail out. So, for years I tried to cover for him, clean up and take care of everyone to show him what I could never articulate into a phrase of my affection. Still, he preferred John B’s half hearted sentiment over anything I could give him.

I wished so deeply that I was born different, that I wasn’t me. Because maybe if I wasn’t the clone of my mother, maybe then my father would like me more.

I guess the worst part of it all is that I can never be sure if my father’s anger could have been my mother’s, only given to him in her absence. Would his hands have been hers as I grew older? Would her hugs turn into the white knuckles wrapped around my throat? And would her songs become the vile words my father threw at me in drunken rage?

Maybe if I kept hiding behind the cruelties of his excuses for the way I cowered around him, then John B wouldn’t have to live in the same sense of shock I have been stuck in for a decade.

Dad never laid a hand on me, but he didn’t have to. He didn’t have to touch me to kick me in the stomach, all he had to do was show me how he was capable of being a loving father, but never put me on the receiving end.

He found time for John B, even as he buried himself in his work, searching for some gold that seemed far away and unimportant. He locked himself away while I slid food under the door, and I watched as he kissed my brother’s forehead and bid him goodnight, leaving me to sleep on the couch.

Even as a thirteen year old girl, an age so tender and impressionable, I felt so much more mature than I should have. I felt the effects of neglect I couldn’t wish on anyone. In my self pity, even after he gave me every reason to turn on him, I couldn’t hate him, so I began to hate myself.

“Dad, when was the first time you felt love?” John B asked one night. For the first time in a long time, we were all lying in the living room. My brother hung over my dad’s lap and my head resting on the floor as I sank off of the old dusty beanbag.

Dad thought carefully, his large hands splayed out against my brother’s small back.

“The day you were born.” He answered thoughtfully, and I watched as my brother’s eyes lit up.

I had every right to scream, to beg for an answer because the little girl trapped inside of me didn’t deserve this kind of pain from her own blood. But I didn’t. I sniffled and sat up, storming out of the house that I wasn’t even sure I could call home. How foolish I felt for ever believing my dad would ever love us the same. How stupid I felt for thinking that my brother, who inherited our fathers name, would never be preferred over my mother’s child.

“Y/n Routledge, get back inside now!” Dad yelled, storming down the porch to catch me. But I had become good at slipping away, and neglectful parents raise angry children.

“Go to hell!” It was the first time I swore at my dad. Even I shocked myself, because it had never occurred to me that I could do that.

“Why do you have to ruin everything?” He asked me, and it made me want to laugh because when had I ever done anything to him that wasn’t in good faith? “Just like your mama! Storming off!” My dad cursed under his breath, not really bothering to chase after me. How easy would it have been for me to have ran away.

I could live under a tree, a big willow with drooping leaves and heavy branches. I could make friends with the squirrels and be a good mother to them, the mother I never had, but always dreamed of.

“My mama was a good woman!” I cried out, suddenly overwhelmed with my freshly made emotions, ones that felt too strong for a new teenage girl.

“You know nothing about her! She left, I’m the one who stayed!” Dad yelled, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious.

I did something I had never done before. In all of my life, not once had I ever blamed my dad for my mom leaving. Not even after I heard their fights from when I was no taller than the notches in the doorframes, and not after he began to spend his paychecks on alcohol instead of new shoes for John B and I. I never blamed him because he always blamed me, and if it made me feel so worthless, then how could I ever do that to him?

“I don’t blame her!” I fought back, tears burning my eyes almost as hard as the back of my throat stung. “And I don’t blame you.”

I couldn’t stay mad at dad for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t blame him, and I couldn’t lie and say I did when I didn’t. Dad didn’t say anything then, so I turned on my heels in the dirt and I stormed off.

That night, I knocked on JJ’s window. I was wearing an old Star Wars t-shirt that he once called nerdy and my rainbow pajama pants. I looked thirteen going on seven, my cupcake slippers caked in mud.

But JJ didn’t pull on my braids like my brother did when we fought, and he didn’t poke fun at my pants. He opened his window and leaned out, his messy blond hair and tired eyes adjusting to admire my face.

“Y/n/n? What happened? Why are you here?” He asked, and I could tell he sounded a little on edge. His dad used to be discreet about how he dealt with JJ, but after middle school had began, he stopped caring as JJ stuck around the same kids he grew up with. So, I stayed as quiet as possible, not wanting any trouble.

“I just missed you.” A lie. The first of many lies I would spew out to my best friend because I felt too awkward to confess my own feelings and burden him when he had it so much worse.

“Oh.” His face lit up slightly, and I could tell my words made him feel nice. “C’mon, I’ll help you in. Wouldn’t wanna lose a slipper.” He teased with a toothy grin, a smart ass from birth.

I playfully smacked his shoulder, holding my breath until my feet hit his dirty floors. He held onto my arms longer than he had to, and I wondered if he could feel my body shaking.

“Don’t make fun, okay? I like my slippers.” I smiled, blinking away the old tears that I cried on the way over, and pawing at the scrapes from the bushes I cut through to get to his house quicker.

“I would never!” He defended softly, his arms raised in a scouts honor. “Cross my heart, cupcake.”

Sometimes I wished that JJ and I were older, I thought about it often. It kept me awake after long fights with dad, that I would one day save up all the money I could scrape together and take JJ with me. We’d go around the globe, just me, him, and open ocean surrounding us, and only the scars on our skin and in our heads to remind us of the past. But we wouldn’t care, because we would be there for each other, and the ocean would wash away the evil men on the shore.

“I wish I had a more appreciative daughter!” Dad yelled at me as he packed up his things in a hurry, chasing yet another lead on his quest for the gold, a passion driven by his valiant greed.

It hurt, but it would have hurt me a lot more three years ago. At sixteen, his words meant nothing to me, because at sixteen, I had finally come to terms with the fact that my dad simply did not like me, and that was okay.

So instead of sitting in self pity, or swallowing myself whole in a another bottomless spiral of self hatred and depression, I finally found the spark that was burning so fiercely somewhere deep inside of me.

“Fuck you!” The second time I swore at dad. “Fuck you and all your promises to get better!” I stepped forward, crossing into his office, which I swore to never go in, not only because it reeked of him, but because it was only a reminder of how quickly he let mom go, and how quickly he shifted the blame onto me, an innocent infant with no real chance to do anything to anyone.

“Fuck me? Oh, fuck me? Your father? I have done everything for you! I have given you the chances my own parents couldn’t give me and you are so ungrateful! I pray for a day you wake up and see the damage you cause around here!” Dad spat, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck all your pride and fuck all your prayers!” I stepped closed again, and my knuckles pawed at his shirt desperately, my eyes looking up at my father, who stood ten times taller than me, or so it felt that way. “All this time I waited like a fool, because you’re my dad. Above anything else, before the treasure and before the alcoholic, you’re supposed to be my dad!”

“Are you drunk?” He asked. I wasn’t, but I might as well have been with how quickly my mind passed through emotions.

Here he was standing in front of me, and here I was already done processing all my grief. He wasn’t dead, I could feel each breath under the palms of my hands, yet for years it felt like walking next to a ghost with how absent and withdrawn he always was from my life.

“All I ever wanted was a father.” I told him softly. “Was that too much to ask?” I deserved to know, but I should have known better.

My dad was an asshole, and he always would be. It was in his fashion that he would brush right past me, unfeeling and lacking empathy for his own daughter.

I felt angry. Before, I felt betrayed, sad, even embarrassed by him, and by how easily I let him get away with all his faults simply because he was my father and if my brother loved him, then there had to be some good in him. But there wasn’t.

Here he was, walking out of my life, the keys to the car that I paid for in his hands, dangling just as carelessly as he was with my life. I don’t know why that set me off, but it had. I heard my feet slap against the floors before I felt myself moving.

“Give back my damn keys!” I caught up behind him, snatching the carabiner from his dirty knuckles and pushing him into the wall. He wouldn’t hit, but god, had he made me wish I could. “I paid off that loan it’s under my name!” I stuffed the clasp into my back pocket tightly.

“You wanna leave, thats fine. But you’re walking out of my life if you’re going!” I breathed out heavily, the frames on the wall rocking back and forth from the force he hit the wood with.

“What is wrong with you? Where’s my sweet little girl I used to love?” My knuckles loosened on his shirt again, but my elbows remained pressed into his stomach.

“Loved? Like you ever loved me. You couldn’t have, because you wouldn’t have taken it out on me. You wouldn’t have gotten rid of her existence in spite of me. You wouldn’t have tossed that damn chair, and you wouldn’t have burned the things she kept for me!” I wanted to cry, but more than that, I wanted him so see how exhausted I felt.

“All I wanted was a fucking father, John.”

“And you got one, and look at you, you’re a strong young woman now!” He laughed bitterly, fighting against my shaky hold. He could barely look at me. I wondered if he was asked, could he even tell a friend the color of my eyes? If I were to wash up on the shore, could he even report the body? Would my grave lay empty simply because he hadn’t known me for years, and he never would.

“I was a little girl! I was a little girl, and I still am! I’m sixteen, dad! Stop treating me like some type of problem when I’ve been nothing but great to you!” I cried this time, pushing him harder until the wood splintered and my arms gave out. We both stumbled away from each other.

“All I ever wanted was a father, but for the first time, finally I can see you are the leader of the landslide.” I scoffed pathetically, staring him down with a broken heart.

I deserved to smash all the plates in the house, to rip off all the wallpaper and spray paint the rotting white paint bright blue just in spite of my father. But even though he wasn’t kind to me, I couldn’t ignore how good of a dad he had been to John B, and more than anything I ever held close to me, I loved my brother dearly. I wiped my tears and let dad walk out on me. Neither of us said a word.

He clapped John B over the back when he got outside, promising to return soon, this time with the promise of an unpromising fortune. He swore that he loved my brother more than anything, called him by the nickname he earned long ago, and left without saying another word.

I watched wordlessly from the front steps.

We lost the gold. Once or twice. The gold we had found first was a slap to the face, but having the cross stolen right out from under us felt so much worse, especially with Pope being tied into it on such a deeper level.

We all sat around the first now, our bodies tucked close together like a perfectly woven blanket, arms tangled around each other and weak laughter echoing around the smokey fire. We didn’t have much left to fight for, but to me, I felt deeply that in a more important way, we had gotten the gold, and we had been filthy rich all along.

The gold we’d found couldn’t be measured on a scale and dealt between the seven of us evenly, but unmeasurable and sought after by anyone who understood. Because in the end, we still had each other, and to me, this was family.

JJ’s blonde hair tickled the top of my forehead. We sat close together on the low swinging hammock in the backyard. His arms wrapped around me tightly, and my legs thrown over his lap carelessly. We talked quietly with Kiara about the little things. We found alternatives to seek out her dreams of preserving the ecosystem and to swim with the turtles.

It all felt so real, so domestic for a group of friends who were always running from something. It felt like the first time in a while I had time to stop and catch my breath.

“What are you thinking about, cupcake?” The nickname rolled nicely off the tongue, his crooked smile endearing to me, and his eyes sweeter than any doe I’d ever encountered.

I sighed contently, cuddling closer to the boy and soaking up his warmth greedily. Though we both never said it would loud, it always felt nice to share close proximity with someone we trusted so deeply. To feel affection for someone when we had grown up scarcely to it.

Dad had been dead for nearly two years now, and the truth was, I wasn’t sixteen anymore. I wasn’t the sad little thirteen year old who hated herself more than anyone else, who climbed through the blondes window at midnight in her muddy slippers, and I wasn’t the timid toddler who could barely walk without tripping on her blanket she dragged around everywhere for a pathetic kind of comfort.

John B took it hard at first. I wanted so desperately to tell him everything. He was my older brother after all, but most days now I felt like it was my job to look out for him. It always had been. He was my brother and I would never have let him suffer, but sometimes it was hard not to wish for once I could selfishly struggle openly and degrade the man he saw as his hero.

It would be wrong for me to taint that image of a dead man, a man I still believed John B was openly grieving, even if he said he was okay now. You are never okay after losing someone like that, no matter how evil, and I think he forgets that he was still my father, even if he never saw us in the same context as he saw him.

“Thinking about how comfortable you are.” I mumbled, stretching my limbs out tiredly along his tanned skin. I laid like a lap dog on his chest, my head tucked under his chin and my hands playing with the rough fabric of his dirty t-shirt.

“Not about John B?” He prodded quietly. JJ always knew when the wheels in my head were turning, just like I could always tell when something was wrong. It was like our super powers, to know each other so well we couldn’t hide anything.

“He’ll come back, he wouldn’t leave you.” He assured softly, his fingers dancing gently along my curved spine. It felt like oddly in times like these, the calm after the storms, that it truly would always be just JJ and I against the world. Like we were the only two people who truly understood each other, through the laughter and under the deepest scars littering our skin.

“I know. He’s my brother, he wouldn’t do that.” I agreed, and just as I was about to let the serenity of the lazy swinging of the hammock lull me into a sleepy haze, the crunching of boots on leaves alerted me elsewhere.

There he stood, his clothes still grimy from the tropical heat and wet mud from Barbados. His hair was stuck to his forehead in the same curl pattern from a few days ago, but the deep rooted brunette seemed to become a shade of dirty blonde from all the harsh sun. His skin was tanned and covered in sweat, but he was still my brother, and he had finally come home.

I sat up quickly from JJ’s arms, pushing off of his chest with so much force, I felt him bend at the waist and let out a puff of air. I shouted an apology before wrapping my brother in a bone crushing hug, relief filling my stomach and the unease dispersing finally.

“Where have you been!” I pushed him away with a smile, I didn’t even notice the seriousness in his gaze as he called out for me softly.

“Are you crazy? Staying behind like that in a foreign country?” I laughed breathlessly, my eyes searching his face and settling on his lack of a smile.

“Y/n/n.” He called out again softly.

“What? Whats wrong?” I breathed out, my smile fading slightly into a dimmer smirk, confidence slipping from my face into a deep furrow between my brows.

“John B, what happened? Did someone hurt you…d-did-“ My happy touch became a panicked grip on his clothes, my knuckles white and face pale as I searched for answers.

“Y/n.” He cooed calmly, the ease between his eyes and brows calming the pace of my breath. “I found him.” He said with a soft smile.

“What?” I breathed out. “Who?”

I racked my brain for answers, mulling over every possible explanation for what could have made me stay behind, leave behind all the good that had surrounded him for the past few years, and the good that would continue to grow with him.

“Don’t tell me you forgot your own dad?” An old voice called out from behind the brush, long greasy hair and an un-groomed bears covering a good portion of his old face. From his glasses alone I could see who it was, never mind the voice that often haunted me even in my sleep, the ghostly presence that lingered even as I slept on my own.

He was a poltergeist haunting my life, torturing my soul until I bled out completely blue. Had the punishment of forcing a child to clean up his mess for over a decade not been enough karma for all the bad I hadn’t done yet? Would I forever be stuck in the broken glass of his aftermath? How much longer would I have to hide behind the shell of who I once was just to please those who don’t yet know about who I am, of who I could have become?

I decided then I couldn’t do it, and I let go of my brother, and I let go of my pride.

“No.” I spoke softly, looking between the boys. John B looked more snd more like dad every day.

I watched my brother’s face crumble in confusion, my heels dragging against the dirt, I backed away like a scared dog, mo longer the eager retriever with a bird at the door. My tail was between my legs.

“Y/n/n, it’s dad!” John B gestured like it would click for me, but that was not my father. Maybe by blood, but he would never be more than that to me, just evidence that linked me back to John B.

“No, I-I can’t.” I tried to explain through staggering breaths, choking out my words like tranquilized venom.

“I know it’s a lot, but everything’s going to be the way it was.”

My back hit JJ’s chest, and for the first time in the last few seconds, the ringing that blocked out my brothers bargaining seemed to fall deaf on my ears, and all I could hear was the sound of my heart beat dying in my chest.

“No, you don’t get it.” I cried out, though my eyes felt dry. “You don’t get it and you never will!” I begged silently for him to see the way the spark seemed to die as soon as dad came back, the way that my shoulders slumped and the confident young woman I had become faded back into the teenage daughter who wished for nothing more than to run far away from here.

“Y/n, come on, don’t be like this.” Dad tried to reason, like it was his say to decide how I would handle his return, like he could decide when I stopped feeling the effects of his abuse, because that was a word I had learned to call it, because that is what it was. Abuse.

“How dare you!” I shouted, anger making my skin hot. I felt queasy, like the world was crashing down on me, betrayal hot on my face. He didn’t know, my brother didn’t know because I protected him from it.

Couldn’t he ever notice how much happier I seemed after dad left? How I finally started living for the moments between us instead of for the times when I could go to sleep, where I could quietly call out for our mother who I didn’t know.

JJ knew, of course he knew. He knew by the time dad left. I’d confessed it all in a drunken ramble in the backyard after he commented on how happy I seemed, and though I laughed when I told him, neither of us found it funny. He apologized for making me feel like my problems were minuscule compared to his, but I assured him it was my own self doubt, and never his own actions. Neglectful parents raise insecure kids.

So if my best friend had known, if he could see just how happy I was without the burden of my father’s blame, how could my other half not see it? My own DNA? It led me to believe he was neglectful of me in his own ways, pushing aside the obvious signs of my own struggle just for his own benefit, for the gain of a relationship with the father that severed ours long ago.

“How dare you come back here after all the shit you put me through!” I cried, and I hit him. I hit him in the chest and I watched as he kept his ground, his shoes not even sliding against the mud. I had grown weaker without his constant fighting, and it showed in just how quickly the flame flickered out.

“How dare you come back and expect me to just be okay with it when all you’ve given me is years of therapy that I can’t afford!” I hit him in the jaw, and this time, I felt a pair of arms pull me away, my hot tears burning their tan skin. I kicked and I screamed, and my brother dragged me off until I couldn’t reach him anymore.

“You’re a piece of shit! I owe you nothing!” I pointed at him, staring him down as he rubbed the quickly blossoming bruise on his skin, his beard covering the welt almost entirely. The mark didn’t make me feel better at all, and instead, I only felt more pathetic.

“I gave you everything!” My limbs fell limp, all fight leaving my body as my tired joints ached, my head falling onto JJ’s shoulder. The boys passed me off like some kind of child, and looking at the man who tormented me my entire youth, I felt just like the timid child once again, like all my growth meant nothing.

The bright moon was replaced with the yellow glow of the kitchen lights, clouds traded in for floral curtains that hung crooked over the windows, and the cool grass fading into hard wood beneath my feet.

“Y/n, hey…” JJ cooed, his hands brushing against my shoulders.

“I just…fuck…I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why I hit him, I don’t know, I just-“

“Y/n, cupcake, hey, baby,” he called for me again, a plethora of nicknames tumbling from his lips that I had never heard him call me before, but all that held a genuine affection in them. I stopped my senseless rambling at the tenderness of his touch and softness in his voice.

“It’s okay to not be okay.” He affirmed quietly. “You earned your anger, it’s okay.”

I nodded, my gaze drifting from just beyond his shoulder were my brother stood dumbfounded with my father, looking at him with a mix of question and anger towards the man that he once saw with stars in his eyes.

“Jay, I don’t know what to do.” I confessed quietly, feeling like we were ten again, sharing secrets through a game of telephone, just the two of us stuffed in the corner of my bedroom at midnight, my father unaware that the blonde was still in the house, let alone snuck in my room.

“That’s okay.” He nodded again, and this time his palms molded against the apples of my cheeks, thumbs brushing away my stale tears.

“It’s gonna be okay, we can run, or we can stay and kick him out, or we can do nothing.” I focused on the way he said each option with the use of we, because in our minds, we always escaped hell together.

“Can we just stay here for a little longer?” My eyes found his, and I saw the way his flickered down in a way that felt too intimate for just best friends.

“We can do whatever we want, it’s you and me against the universe, cupcake, and we’re winning it.” He promised.

And just as I always had, I believed every word he said.